The scientist behind the controversial ‘hockey stick’ graph has said it was ‘somewhat misplaced’ to make his work an ‘icon of the climate change debate’.
From the Telegraph, By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Professor Michael Mann plotted a graph in the late 1990s that showed global temperatures for the last 1,000 years. It showed a sharp rise in temperature over the last 100 years as man made carbon emissions also increased, creating the shape of a hockey stick.
The graph was used by Al Gore in his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and was cited by the United Nations body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as evidence of the link between fossil fuel use and global warming.
But the graph was questioned by sceptics who pointed out that is it impossible to know for certain the global temperature going back beyond modern times because there were no accurate readings.
The issue became a central argument in the climate change debate and was dragged into the ‘climategate’ scandal, as the sceptics accused Prof Mann and his supporters of exaggerating the extent of global warming.
However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.
“I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate,” he said.
…
Professor John Christy, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Huntsville in Alabama, said just a quarter of the current warming is caused by man made emissions. He said that 10 to 30 per cent of scientists agree with him and are fairly sceptical about the extent of man made global warming.
==========
full story here
CMT, this one is dumber.
Mann is full of it. If there are ‘uncertainties’, where are the error bars? The Y-axis would have to be increased by orders of magnitude to show them, and then one couldn’t see a hockey-stick. Anyone who uses a small fraction of their data to skew the weight of their entire ‘study’ isn’t doing science, it is fraud.
What happened to the full investigation Penn State was supposed to conduct? Did they ever release their findings and determinations?
It’s the old you need flood insurance even though you live 500 ft above flood plain argument.
My B.S. meter is pegged on 11…
Funny how Mann forgot to mention the uncertainties when his work was made the poster child of global warming. Funny how he forgot to mention that he felt that it was “misplaced” to make his graph an “icon.” Perhaps being feted by the media and IPCC must have clouded his judgement.
How disingenuous can one person be?
M. Mann had months & months & months to amend the IPCC claims related to his H/S graph, yet did he? He probably enjoyed his role as a VIP rider on the AGW gravy train too much, m’thinks.
Louise Gray is a warmist hack & Watson’s remarks about householders and fire insurance reveal him to be clueless IMO. Fire insurance does not cost a householder anything like the cost of electricity in the UK. I pay the equivalent of $160 per month for it. My buildings & contents insurance is $520 per annum.
Then I still have to pay for natural gas from Russia or Norway& the country only has 13 days of reserves at any one time. Thirteen years of socialism have reduced the UK to penury & G. Brown has a $3 million pension. Summat’s wrong.
AAHH….. “an inconvenient uncertainty” …sounds more accurate
So, now Prof Mann is backpedalling …
He didn’t seem too worried when receiving all those public accolades for so many years. How the tide has turned.
I see from the article that Prof Christy holds the more modest position of mankind’s contribution to warming as being in the 10% to 30% range. Reminds me of reading on Steve Milloy’s site, Junk Science, how mankind’s contribution was around 25% of climate warming. Can’t get people too excited about warming caused by mankind that’s only a small fraction of a fraction of a degree of total warming over a century.
“I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate,” he said.
Yeah, of course you did, Mann. That is just so clear in your emails. NOT.
Hmmm. He always thought it… but never said it.
Well, why would he? It is not as though it would have been appropriate, or ethical for him to clarify his position.
Yes, I remember all the comments Mann made to the media saying there is too much emphasis on his hockey stick.
Hide the decline. He won’t admit he pressed down the temps in the 40’s and the medieval period?
Does this mean we can look forward to seeing full publication of the residuals? Place your bets.
“However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.”
No uncertainties at all; it’s settled. His work is crap.
reading the actual article, the insurance comparison is hilarious….would people buy fire insurance if it costs 3 times more than the house?
I’m so disgusted with Penn State. This bozo hasn’t produced a single paper of merit since he’s been there and their own reputation has taken such a terrible hit with him as a ‘Professor’ that it too is nearly worthless. Could someone please give me the new age definition of ‘Professor’ again – I never bought any of Fat Albert’s perverted ‘How To Make a Bundle’ books on climate change, integrity, and recreational massage therapy. What does the Profit of Doom say about ‘Professors’?
Is it possible these days for a judge to change the state where you were born?
What a disingenuous piece of crap. He never said a word or lifted a finger to dissuade anyone from making it the icon, and did all he could to place it in that position.
Prof Bob Watson, a UK Government adviser: “What risks are we willing to take? The average homeowner probably has fire insurance. They don’t expect a fire in their home…”
I pay for homeowner’s insurance (including fire coverage) because my mortgage company requires it. I chose freely to do business with the mortgage company, knowing their requirements. The mortgage company is not willing to take the risk. Would I? Don’t know, since I have no choice atm.
Interesting strategy by Mr. Mann: first producing publications, achieving notoriety, obtaining funding, getting tenured professor position, and the last is the admission that there is large uncertainty in his science. If it would be done in honest way with stating first that the uncertainty is so high that all this is just his opinion rather than the scientific result then, it would be no funding, no tenure, no five figure salary. Well… this is true Mike’s Nature Trick.
Interesting that Dr. Mann never made any similar statement prior to Climategate.
“…Ten years on from the study that provoked all the ire, Michael Mann’s conclusion is that far from being broken, “the hockey stick is alive and well”. …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7592575.stm
Oh, how the story changes with the ‘climate’….
What can I say… There are more Miracles in Science than in Nature !!!
Look at the graph.
http://www.toriljohannessen.no/bilder/Words_and_years_Miracles.jpg
So the hockey stick is orphan now. So for global paleo record we should switch to Loehle 2007, and for longer time span the Greenland drill record is not bad as well.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/loehle_fig2.JPG
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
The hockey stick was SO MUCH of a central icon that Iain Stewart drove it around London on a truck billboard for BBC2, as seen in the 2nd YouTube video at this page: http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/09/biased-broadcasting-climate.html
About 10 years late
The Telegraph also reported on an interesting related article about butterflies. hmmm. It seems that a large blue carnivorous butterfly went extinct 50 years ago in the England area because the area where they flourished got too cold for the red ants they eat. Now that the place has heated up, the butterfly is making a comeback. And of course the local scientists are giving mother nature a helping hand to get this going. Trouble is, are they fighting a natural AMO induced natural cycle? The article sounds a lot like the salmon cycle that uncovered its cause: the PDO.
The obvious rule-out issue with this butterfly is the AMO flipping from warm to cool and then back again. That flip is one of our longer oceanic oscillations and I would bet this butterfly population in England is tied to it.
So where are the researchers of old who went about studying flora and fauna populations tied to oceanic/land temperature cycles? There are lots and lots of ancient old articles that were highly correlative. That steady stream of biology scientists seems to have dried up yet we know there are many species of flora and fauna that depend on oscillations, and are genetically tied to these temperature oscillations, in order to stay healthy.
That Mann attributes his odd collection of data to AGW makes me wonder if he failed to rule-out natural causes. Oh. What am I saying? Of course he forgot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7857268/Climate-change-brings-back-endangered-butterfly.html
The “shukkin’ and jivin'” begins.
One wonders if Mann looked over his shoulder and spotted Ken Cuccinelli. 🙂
“Misplaced?”
Well, Mann certainly misplaced the Medieval Warm Period…..
It’s instructive to see members of The Team move into Stage III of the grieving process (negotiation) since Stages I (denial) and II (anger) have run their course.
Funny, I never got the sense from reading Mann’s posts at RC that he saw “uncertainties” in his work or that he thought the hockey stick was misplaced as a central icon of the climate change “debate” – particularly when trying to defend the hockey stick against M&M’s analysis.
I wonder if the threat of Cuccinelli shining a spotlight on his work has anything to do with his new contrite attitude?
It was misplaced, alright. Rather than being placed in the IPCC report, it should have been put out with the trash.
These statements by Mann are too few and too late. He reveled in the glory all those years and fought tooth and nail to have the thing accepted as something resembling a valid scientific finding.
Now we can discuss the degree of ‘misplacement’.
Now he tells us…
Indeed Mann has a point and the blame for the “hockey-stick” becoming such an important icon of the debate really lies with the IPCC’s TAR which used the ‘hockey-stick’ as an icon for global warming. Who was the lead author on TAR anyway?
The hockey-stick is important, if it is right then the changes we are seeing are unprecedented and outside the normal pattern of climate change and most likely are the result of unique circumstances (CO2) which are created by man, if it is wrong then the climate changes we are seeing now are not unprecedented and might be (not are but might be) part of the normal pattern of climate changes the world goes through.
Sure, he’s so conscious of uncertainty in his work that he allowed the caveats he holds to filter on down to the common man. Absolutely, I believe him.
And pigs fly.
Shame he’s saying that only now, 10 years AFTER it became the IPCC’s poster child
Talk about rewriting the past and shifting the blame
And so it begins…
“…even if severe global warming is not certain it is worth preparing for the higher temperature projections.”
There’s a rather large difference between ‘we must act now to save the planet’ and ‘we should probably act now to save the planet’.
Shouldn’t the title Professor be put in quotes? What a crook.
Now he tells us!
Gosh!
It has never been easy to confuse Michael Mann with a shrinking violet suffering from a shyness problem. His views are pretty well known and he does not have a reputation for hiding from the glare of publicity.
His webpage http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html even includes 10 carefully chosen photgraphic images of himself to download just in case there is any doubt as to his appearance. A quiet and retiring backroom boy he is not!
And yet suddenly, 12 years after publication, he has decided that the work most closely associated with his name (the Hockey Stick) has been over publicised and the emphasis on it ‘misplaced’. Given that it was the IPCC that helped to make such a lot of noise about it as ‘proof’ of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and he is a such a prime mover in that body, I fear he doth protest too much…..and too late
And the timing is interesting. In the UK, many have been enjoying the book ‘ The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science’ by AW Montford. This details in blow-by-blow detail the difficulties others have encountered in attempting to verify Mann’s work. And leads many to believe that it may have some serious failings.
Until recently it has been difficult for readers in the US to obtain this book. But Montford (who also publishes the excellent Bishop Hill blog) recently announced that he had eventually secured a US distributor.
It may be a pure coincidence that Mann makes his observations that the Hockey Stick furore was overblown in the same month that Montford’s book become easily available in the US.
Or it may not.
Wow, what a voltafaccia!
Looks like the author of the falsified global temperature graph no longer agrees with Mann-made warming! Seems he could be aware that the Zeitgeist on this issue has changed.
As I was walking up the stair,
I met a Mann who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish that Mann would go away!
“However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work. “I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate,” he said. ”
Yeah, right. To borrow a phrase – “Pardon me while I puke”
If I recall correctly, did Dr. Mann not claim at a hearing regarding the “hockey stick” in the past that his reconstruction was accurate to a tiny fraction of a degree? I don’t recall the exact incident; perhaps someone else does.
So, professor Mann goes from peddling to back-pedaling. And who was it most responsible for having “somewhat misplaced” the hoaxy stick? Why, the IPCC of course. So, they get thrown under the bus by Mann. The CAGW/CC death spiral has begun. Should be fun to watch.
Yes, they are now lost with a hockey stick shaped hole in their hearts and minds, and they can’t find anything to fill it. 🙁
They don’t want the real one, with the very curvy handle showing the MWP and the LIA, which also happen to correspond to historic solar maximums and minimums.
Perhaps a nice new geoid with vanishing icecaps and rising sea levels, let me know.
We do know about climate history from anecdotal evidence even if we don’t have temperature readings. We know there was a warm period in the Roman era and again in the middle ages simply from the kind of crops that were grown. We know that there was a little ice age from the frost fairs on the Thames. Mann’s hockey stick does not reflect this and is simply wrong. No, not some uncertainties, just plain wrong. For the IPCC to take this up was plain wrong and demonstrates that they are not doing scientific work but acting as propaganda for a new age religion.
As for the prof guessing how much man made CO2 contributes to global warning – it’s just a guess (he calls it an estimate). But there is no solid theory about how the climate works, long term. Skeptics must hammer this point. Senior govt. figures are making policy on the basis of guesswork. Sure, they are raising extra revenue, or hope to, but in the process they are damaging the industrial base of the free world.
I have to question if they are really true to the duties of their office. What private agenda are they working to? In Britain, we have an Energy Minister who believes that nuclear fuel is outdated and wants us to revert to the middle ages technology of windmills (please don’t call them turbines – they are certainly not).
Our governing class are in the grip of a collective panic and see their salvation as green technology but you, dear taxpayer, will pay the price thanks in part to guesses from our esteemed professor.
I find it a little late to come forward and now express that there were uncertainties in his work. Why was there not these expressions during the time of the great push being made by the warmists. It appears in my humble little educated brain that there might be some face saving and distancing from prior positions beginning to occur at this late date after billions of dollars and other currencies have been squandered because of incorrect assumptions because of incomplete science. We still have plenty to learn in this field and it will require many disciplines to get all the data and then much time to understand the science. Perhaps we can now move on and look at the whole picture rather than just one small part.
Bill Derryberry
He seemed awfully happy with the hockey stick before Climate Gate.
However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.
Are we hearing the distinct sound of backtracking here?
Yeah I’m sure that Mann didn’t object to the IPCC:s usage of his graph, his role in the “climate research” got bumped up after that I imagine. It’s his own fault for doing the dodgy science that the “air castles” of the climate models later got built upon.
say what?
I guess “uncertainties” is as close to “flat out wrong” or “lying” as you can get out of him.
But uncertainties will do, uncertainties makes it completely invalid.
I think this is related;
WE HAVE A NEW “TIPPING POINT” !!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-expect-climate-tipping-point-by-2200-2012967.html
Does this mean Gordon Browns “Tipping Point” is “Un-Robust” now?
Will those scientists who moved the Tipping Point be added to the BlackList?
Are they “Deniers” of “The Tipping Point”?
“I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate,” he said.
**************************************************************************
Funny that this is the first disclaimer we have heard from Da’ Mann to this effect. He’s only had 10 years to decry that his work was not worthy of Icon Status. As he produced the work, and holds the intellectual property rights to it, could he not have asked that it not be used in all of those other papers and reports and things that made it so famous?
Pull the other one, Mike. It has bells on it.
Topic of interest.
Cryosat-2 focuses on ice target
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10450425.stm
Looks like the European Space Agency sat is in a proper orbit and the instrumentation working as planned. Note that there is still some interpretation of data to extrapolate physical properties.
Prior to Mann and his ‘walking stick’, the CET chart produced by climatologist H. Lamb was the middle ages temp’s bible, it was even used by IPCC in the couple of their early issues.
Here it is again this time compared to the total solar irradiance TSI and the Earth’s magnetic field in the areas that (I speculate) may affect Gulf Stream, decisive factor in the CETs.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETlmt.htm
But I do notice that Mann did not say that when he was the darling of the team and getting all kinds of “good” publicity.
Too much sax and violins on TV…nevermind.
Ah yes – Louise Gray “the Queen of the Press Release”. What a job she does! It must be tough slaving all day at her computer, forwarding press releases from Greenpeace or rehashed stories from warmist news organisations (this time the BBC) straight to the Telegraph printroom.
[sarcasm on]
Well, I’m so glad he cleared that up! [sarcasm off]
He also testified that the MWP was hotter than today. Under oath I assume.
That graph looks suspiciously hockey stick like.
At some point the tipping point will be reached where the great band of CAGW believers realize that there just are not going to be any catastrophes in the foreseeable future and that their public posture needs a change.
I describe what will happen as the great pirouette. Like Dr. Mann, the science will get less settled. The uncertainties will be discovered. The possibility of important climate variables other than CO2 will get funding and become areas of interest.
In just a few short years, the same folks will glide over to the ice age prevention theme and CAGW will not be a topic for discussion in polite company.
Hide the Decline is joined by Hide the Uncertainties.
Now he wants to Hide under a Rock.
And to think that his series were better than that of Briffa… if Mann’s series are crap, those of Briffa were super-crap.
Steve Keohane-Where are the error bars? Um, that’s what the gray fuzz. They don’t seem to be calculated quite right, but they are error bars.
It is always best to speak the truth before you get on the stand. Any surprise in court is alwasy a bad thing. Anticipate the questions, publish the responses, deny the prosecution the ability to surprise the listener.
Do you swear…
Steve Keohane says:
June 29, 2010 at 6:58 am
Mann is full of it. If there are ‘uncertainties’, where are the error bars? The Y-axis would have to be increased by orders of magnitude to show them, and then one couldn’t see a hockey-stick. Anyone who uses a small fraction of their data to skew the weight of their entire ‘study’ isn’t doing science, it is fraud.
************
Aren’t the error bars clearly displayed in the graph?
The actual paper does discuss the uncertainties involved with the methods….
Will Mann be added to the Blacklist now?
Over a hundred years ago Hilaire Belloc described a (firm, but fair) British Imperialist,
besieged on a hillock by hordes of sceptical natives, saying under his breath:
‘Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, and they have not.’
I imagine the modern would-be world ruling Warmists have altered this to read:
‘Whatever happens, we have got
the Hockey-Stick, and they have not.’
Of course, the 10-30% of the warming being discussed is assuming that one buys into there being warming and that CO2 can alter the climate.
It might be useful to access and actually understand the recent elegant work by Miskolczi and Zagoni that describes the interaction between water vapor and CO2 such that one replaces the other to result in a relatively constant effect. As CO2 goes up absolute water vapor goes down. And, since CO2 is not as strong a heat-trapping gas as water vapor, then rising CO2 could slightly cool the climate.
As it appears that warming has been rather constant over the last 200+ years, at about 0.5 deg C per century, then one cannot make any attribution to a contribution to warming by man’s emissions.
Mr. Christy is generous to discuss man’s contribution (to warming) but, in the process, he validates the adulteration and upward-biased adjustment of the temperature records (to create a manmade on paper global warming) which has become a cottage industry in climate science.
Does this mean that another paper is poised to come out further damaging the stick, and Mann is simply trying to get ahead of it?????
It is getting obvious that “professor” Mann is “misplaced” too
“However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/06/whats_up_with_the_weather.html
Prof Manns comments to the BBC can be found in the second clip in the above link.
Chaps
Surely we should not be quite so quick to poke fun at poor Michael. We should wait until Real Climate has told the true believers what to think about his statement and how it actually strengthens their case. So far there has been no word from the Keepers of the True Flame. Maybe Gav is on hols.
Until they are told how to react the warmists are probably all confused and demoralised and stuff and we shouldn’t pile into their intellectual misery just for our own satisfaction.
But, on second thoughts……… 🙂
I don’t know what surprises me more, the fact that there are only 62 responses so far or that Michael Mann actually said this.
I hear comments like this all the time on Skeptic Science and other warmist blogs.
I still don’t understand why people say Jones work and the Mann hockey stick are misplaced as Icons in ACGW.
They are the very focal points of the IPCC, and other publications which Government policy makers look at.
In fact the hockey stick paper was such a focal point that during the AR4 the writers and editor of chapter 6 violated several policies and regulations regarding review, process and timelines to try to throw in a supposedly peer reviewed article backing up the hockey stick. If it’s not such an integral piece of ACGW then why did scientists who were formally respected throw away all vestige of decency, fairplay, and honesty with The Amman et al. paper for chapter 6 in the AR4?
Anyone know who this bunch are?
http://www.theclimatesummit.org/
The Italian arguing the warmist side on the Telegraph comments claims to be their EU co-ordinator or some such grand sounding title. (He also claims to be a Physicist with a PhD, but it isn’t obvious from his posts.)
As I recall, the Hockey Stick Graph was added to the IPCCC report after the scientific inputs were already in. So, “all the scientists in the world” had not seen it prior to publication. It was inserted by the editors. If that is so, who was (were) the editors who gave it the primary position as the lead concept of that report?
Also, as I recall, “all the scientists in the world” had not reviewed Mann’s work. We know this because, even when asked for copies of his work to review, Mann stonewalled for years. So, the IPCC couldn’t have reviewed it and agreed with it, because they hadn’t seen it.
Once again, who were the editors or individuals who made Mann’s work the centerpiece of the IPCC report?
Just o clarify a misprint in my earlier post.
I meant to say ‘maybe Gav is on hols’.
‘Hols’ is British English short for holidays (vacation) and Gavin Schmidt is British by birth – and I am disappointed to say studied at the same college as I did 🙁
On the latest BBC Panorama prog yesterday
Whats Up With the Weather
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00swp0k/Panorama_Whats_Up_With_the_Weather/
About 17:30 in.
Mann “I’ve done my best, whenever I’ve been given an opportunity to try to clarify, the uncertainties in our work”.
Is the Mann news story in any way predictive of the soon to be released report by PSU who was investigating Mann?
Does Mann already know the results of the PSU investigation? He should.
Is he leveraging his position before it is too late? I think so, which to me means the findings by PSU won’t be entirely a whitewash . . . partly.
John
Now, lets be clear here. Mann lied, cheated, deliberately altered data to achieve his HS graph. Along with Hansen and NOAA they have altered historic data in order to confirm Mann’s fraudulant work. This is not accidentally poor science, IT IS FRAUD. I hope Cuccinelli nails him and his university(s).
The one thing that you can’t argue about is the weather….climate, is something else entirely 🙁
If their method as scientists (note, I did not say scientific method) worked so successfully (and was only really laid low by an unexpected public exposure of their shenanigans) one can only wonder at what else is being “promoted” as the truth and for what reasons, at what cost…
I watched the original BBC program, and what is clear is the extent to which Louise Grey has cherry picked. Amazingly for the BBC, it was clear that the vast majority of people asked for an opinion were luke warm to down right denialist (sorry to use the phrase, but a number believed that global warming was complete hype and didn’t allow for even a little doubt. The only person to unequivocally believe in AGW, when asked why, said that if they said so in the news then it must be right!
The scientists were all in agreement that some warming had taken place, that CO2 had increased due to man’s activity. The only area of real difference was the extent, and even the warmest agreed that there was uncertainty.
Doubts were also raised in the program about the efectiveness of windpower. The “doom and gloom” drowning world, child scaring TV advert of a few months back was criticised. Rising sea levels were dismissed as insignificant (sea level rose 30cm in the last century and who noticed it, was the summary). Nobody on the program mentioned “runaway” warming which was always the key point of warming alarmists, and then we come to Mann’s retrenchment.
It is clear from this program that there are elements of doubt entering the minds of even BBC journalists. Bear in mind that the program on which this appeared, Panorama, is a key BBC current affairs program put out at a peak viewing period.
I can think of three possible reasons for this miraculous conversion:
1) A unlikely decision to start questioning the “consensus” position.
2) A realisation that public opinion is swinging strongly against the warmists
3) Given that the BBC is a leftist organisation, they are now taking up a position of opposing the new carbon reduction policies (misguided IMHO) of the new Conservative government.
Unfortunately miraculous conversion and Louise Grey don’t go together.
If I commit a fraud and it is palpably provable as a fraud, when I come up before the judge is it open to me to plead “uncertainty” in my defence?
Let’s see, who ws lead author of the TAR chapter on paleoclimate that iconized Mann’s HS? Wasn’t it the same Michael Mann?
The problem is that the media, in the past, failed to clearly point out the “uncertainties” and it was the ‘Hockey Stick’ graph that persuaded me that, as Al Gore put it, “the science is settled” and the “debate is over”. Most people were persuaded by the media. I changed my mind when I realised the MWP and LIA (from peer reviewed work) were erased from the graphs and sleight of hand coupled with poorly placed thermometers created the rapid upward slope of the Hockey Stick illusion. Climategate and Pachauri’s business interests merely reinforced my doubts.
The blue and gray fuzz around the hockey stick graph represents data from various other sources, afaik.
There has not been an effort to put plausible error bars on the data, perhaps because it is already quite challenging to simply get it to line up, while interpreting the temperature implications of different tree ring or sediment layers thicknesses is inherently very ambiguous.
Of course this also makes it possible to draw hockey sticks as desired, with no need to explain except perhaps some belated recognition of inherent uncertainties.
I’d like to echo the words of Professor Raymond Bradley:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=111&filename=926681134.txt
This from IPCC FAQ 6.2 Page114 of TAR4.
‘All published reconstructions find that temperatures were warm during medieval times, cooled to low values in the 16th 17th 18th 19th centuries, then warmed rapidly after that.’
The Met office assert;
“Before the twentieth century, when man-made greenhouse gas emissions really took off, there was an underlying stability to global climate. The temperature varied from year to year, or decade to decade, but stayed within a certain range and averaged out to an approximately steady level.”
This statement is somewhat surprising as the Met office are the custodians of the longest dataset in the World -Central England temperatures- dating from 1659 , which is one of the most examined and researched temperature records in the world.
This actual instrumental record- as opposed to more imaginative proxies involving lumps of wood and holes in the ground- do not seem to agree with either the Met office, the IPCC nor Dr Mann’s bold assertions, as the record clearly shows wild fluctuations and a certain amount of cyclical behaviour.
This is CET to 1659 with global emissions of CO2 http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
This is the annual mean CET (Central England Temperature) from 1659 as a straightforward graph.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jdrake/Questioning_Climate/_sgg/m2_1.htm
This the same record by month;
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jdrake/Questioning_Climate/_sgg/m2m1_1.htm
As can be seen, throughout the record the temperatures have been warming-centuries before the input of Co2 by man. The period around 1700-1730 shows a particularly notable upturn in temperatures.
The instrumental record showing this notable variabilty is backed up by high quality contemporary observational records. Anyone browsing the diary of Samuel Pepys for January 1660/61-the year the Royal Society was established- would read;
“It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.”
This mild dry winter was followed the following year by a similarly mild but very wet winter. However there were very sharp and extended periods of frost during three of the next five winters. It is said that skating was introduced into England during the winter of 1662/63 and that King Charles II watched this new activity on the frozen Thames.
Here are some additional linear regressions for some of the oldest data sets in the world-all show the same slight warming trend over centuries and climate variability.
http://i47.tinypic.com/2zgt4ly.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/125rs3m.jpg
CET is backed up by various other records which show the latter stages of the early 18th Century warming, such as this one from Uppsala.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/how-long-is-a-long-temperature-history/
We are fortunate with this particular record- from our friend Arrhenius’s home town- to have the botanical garden records as well. These take us back to around 1695. Around 1710 the custodians start to plant outside some quite exotic plants-together with mulberries.
So the temperature rise can be traced back to at least 1690, and if we look further back, before the English Civil War, we know that the coldest part of this second phase of the LIA occurred in the early part of the 17th Century, so we can actually trace that rise from around 1601, which some say was the coldest year in our history.
It would appear that the Giss records -which start at in 1880- merely ‘plug’ into this well documented, gently warming, centuries long trend as a continuation of it -not the start.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Some might believe that this all suggests that CO2 appears to be a somewhat weak climate driver that is overwhelmed by natural variability, and that our international institutions appear to have inexplicably forgotten their climate history and not be aware that, far from being ‘unprecedented,’ the apparent cyclical nature of our climate explains the current temperature trends very nicely.
Historic instrumental temperature records can be found here on my web site together with a variety of related articles.
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
Tonyb
It is important to note something about Michael Mann.
He is no expert on tree ring proxies.
“In Mann’s lavish 13,465-word online résumé the word ‘tree’ appears only 6 times. By comparison the word ‘ocean’ appears 37 times.”
Source: his resume.
Did a Secret Climate Deal Launch the Hockey Stick Fakery?
Source: Canada Free Press – May 13, 2010
Not an icon of the climate change *debate* – why not? Not an icon of climate change – true.
The only reason Mann would have for not wanting it to be a central icon of the debate is because it has been so thoroughly discredited in the debate. Mann is uncomfortable in the role of poster boy for exaggerated climate science.
You know, all this talk about taking out an insurance policy has got me thinking…
Why doesn’t the US take out a global warming insurance policy with AIG?
We wouldn’t have to make any premiums on it, as AIG has already received billions in bailout money. What they could also do is write a credit default swap with Goldman Sachs, or have Goldman Sachs write it for them (I’m not sure who would be the counterparty to who, but who’s to quibble?). These credit default swaps could then be broken up into bite size chunks and peddled to warmists throughout the world. Al Gore could buy them up and after marking them up, sell them with his books and movies.
But the graph was questioned by sceptics who pointed out that is it impossible to know for certain the global temperature going back beyond modern times because there were no accurate readings.
And this reporter holds a paid position as an ‘environment correspondent’?
The Panorama reporter, Tom Heap, commented on a homeowner’s plasma TV as a source of emissions at the power station.
But on several occasions he bragged about his zero emissions electric car! Did he think it was an electric car, or was a magic car?
On balance, I didn’t think much of the Panorama programme. The questions were slanted to create the appearance of agreement: “Do you believe CO2 is a GHG?”; “Have humans emitted CO2?”; “How certain are you that humans have had an effect on climate?” We can all pretty much agree on these questions, if they are taken no deeper.
The real question is: How certain are we that human emissions are the cause of a future environmental catastrophe?
The closest Panorama got to that question was to quote the IPCC range of between 1 and 6 degC rise by the end of the century. A huge range – so the IPCC is not at all sure .
Panorama missed the real issue – no surprises in that.
Mann says hockey stick “icon” is “misplaced”
A bit like the original data eh Mike?
“And this reporter holds a paid position as an ‘environment correspondent’?”
tallbloke,
A fine example of Louise Grey’s journalistic talents is revealed on Bishop Hill’s blog – she’s managed to repeat a story she reported on last year.
looking at the graph now.. why does the band of noise narrow significantly at 1600? different measurment proxies?
I never wanted that icon (points to a random graph). The hockey stick.
I wrote too soon about Real Climate keeping quiet. the following gnomic utterance has just appeared (courtesy of Gavin)
‘Seen at a meeting yesterday:
Grant us…
The ability to reduce the uncertainties we can;
The willingness to work with the uncertainties we cannot;
And the scientific knowledge to know the difference.
(Drawn from a white paper on the use of climate models for water managers)
Discuss’
Obviously uncertainty is favour du jour among the faithful….I detect a ground clearing operation so that when some nasty news comes out (Penn University inquiry??) they have plenty of apparent cover to show that explaining the uncertainties has always been at the forefront of their efforts. Or at least 95% of the time. Or maybe 40%. Or that they promise to do so by 2035..or maybe 2350. And anyone who says otherwise is a voodoo.
Anyway they have always been whiter than white and it is only Big Oil shills like McIntyre and other troublemakers who are trying to cause difficulties. The science is Settled (within the limits of uncertainty, whatever they may be).
Mann seems to be saying all kinds of things when the reporter voice-over plays. And then they make him look sort-of snarly faced and say whatever it is he says.
Mann is being mildly disingenous too – he *has* said that he favors Hansen-like one-time weather events to advance ‘climate change awareness’.
“We have to get rid of the
Medieval Warm PeriodHockey Stick.”If you plot Mr Mann’s protestations of innocence against the chance of the discovery of his guilt you get a hockey stick.
Taking that analogy a bit further – would you take out a fire insurance policy if the premiums would cost far more than the value of your house, and that the payout would only be about 5% of your house value?
Aside from the alleged hockey stick fraud Michael Mann is currently under investigation for plain old common fraud.
“said it was ‘somewhat misplaced’ to make his work an ‘icon of the climate change debate’.”
“said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.”
This is so funny, and pathetic at the same time……
……he’s trying to act like he’s been so busy and so removed from it all,
he didn’t have time to keep up…….
that he didn’t even hardly know what was going on………
pathetic little mann……….if he had not been shown up, and was right, he would still
be crowing and claiming all the credit for himself………
REPLY: The Hockey Stick graph is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Actually the BBC programme was very carefully nuanced. Basically Jeremy Vine asked four questions. Was the world warming? Was CO2 a greenhouse gas? Had CO2 been increasing? Was man contributing to climate change?
Even a convinced sceptic might be able to answer those questions in the affirmative although some of the questions probably merit a “don’t know”. What the programme was careful not to ask was – if you believe that man is contributing to climate change, is man-made CO2 contributing to climate change and/or are some other human activities such as urbanisation, intensive agriculture, deforestation equally or more responsible.
“uncertainties”
M. Mann started out by stating pretty confidently that the Medieval Warm Period [pdf] was a localised phenomenon then began to have a change of heart in November 2009 after Climategate erupted. He seems to be having a re-think as the Cuccinelli investigation presses down on his illusion.
Maybe someone is actively trying to get on the Black-List?
Next winther will most likely be even worse than the last one.
Then CAGW will most likely slowly disappear as an idea among most voters, and the political mood might turn. Something else will be scary instead. MSM will follow.
Then someone in power might ask; Hmmmm lots of money spendt, and nothing to show for it……?? Who’s fault is that? Nice to be on the Blacklist then.
It will be a WhiteList.
Does he still intend to sue the Minnesotans for Global Warming?
Today, Mann says he always indicated the “uncertainties” in his published works. I just hope he wrote the words “uncertainties” in his grant applications and in his prize (some with money) acceptance speeches. Now what was the most recent $1.8 million for malaria and mosquitoes?
Correction:
“wrote the word “uncertainties””
It is good that BBC has shown, if only by the title “Whats Up With the Weather”, that they are aware of the considerable amount of genuine debate on the Web and elsewhere. However, it was the usual carefully constructed appearance of fairness, underplayed with staged agreement to the AGW cause which came across most strongly.
I was interested to see the comments by Tim Yeo, government spokesman on climate change, who is also my Member of Parliament (MP). Thanks to the his apparently unshakeable belief in AGW and the equally strong line in taxation and CC laws that go with it, it is now time for me to put pen to paper and take this up with him personally.
Yes, I am going to ask him to justify his views and also to state whether there are any MP’s who do not take the whole AGW line, as I want reassurance that at least some of our MP’s are do not rely solely on the officially endorsed IPCC stance.
—
It was on Panorama about 7 years ago that I heared about James Hansen talking about how he was being ‘gagged’ by NASA re AGW and about global dimming and how methane calthrates could eventually rise to the surface with a vision of the oceans igniting in flames – I kid you not.
Jordan says:
———-
He should have asked himself where the electricity came from to power his electric car. :o( Maybe windmills, maybe fossil fuels.
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works
Hearing Statements
Date: 12/06/2006
Statement of Dr. David Deming
University of Oklahoma, College of Earth and Energy, Climate Change and the Media
http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543
Did you know Michael Mann is a Nobel Prize winner? I did not.
http://cdn3.libsyn.com/pennfuture/Dr_Michael_Mann_PennFutureConf.mp4?nvb=20100630002115&nva=20100701003115&t=0bc941d737b4b3290d295
The Origin of the Species:
From: FOI2009/FOIA/documents/harris-tree/briffa_sep98_e.pro
—
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
—
This will create a hockey stick from almost anything, and surpress the MWP at the same time.
Someone wrote these three lines of code into the climate model. They are a fabication that attaches a lie to the output. It was intentional deception.
Jimbo says:
Is putting the word in the ***title*** of his second major (and most cited) paper on the subject good enough for you? http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5242602239254232391&hl=en&as_sdt=20000000000
So poor ol Mckyntire has spent the last 10 years sweating his guts out for nothing now, ol Mann is admitting it after all .. what a waste!
However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.
Oh, yeah, sure. That’s why he’s defended the reprehensibly indefensible: His collusion and conspiracy to produce an entirely fabricated misrepresentation of historical weather data, which was used time and again to foist upon the world a KNOWINGLY FALSE history of climate.
Need we recall ‘Mike’s nature trick?’ Yeah: The CONVENIENT LIE.
The ONLY thing I need to know about Mr. Mann is that he’s willfully dishonest to the point of personal dishonor, and refuses to admit of it.
He should do the rest of humanity a favor: Drop out of sight and remain forevermore in obscurity.
“”Joel Shore says:
June 29, 2010 at 5:52 pm \
Is putting the word in the ***title*** of his second major (and most cited) paper on the subject good enough for you?””
Absolutely not, don’t make me blow lunch.
Mann goes on to claim that the 1990’s were the hottest, while admiting the “uncertainties” of past temperatures.
He might as well claim to be able to pick lotto tickets…………….
“Uncertainties”!!!!!!
Is he actually telling me that I have spent an enormous amount of time learning about modeling, coding and r values etc to enable me to keep up with the debate but now its “Well okay, sorry about that but I am not very good at it myself”……..
Must pop over to C.A. and catch S.M.’s slant on it!
Color me unimpressed. This lousy creep, after getting caught, wants to back-peddle? Wear it, creep. May your name, Michael Mann, become as famous as Mr. Ponzi’s.
He’s shocked, shocked to discover that people took his work seriously. The BBC, with their impeccable objectivity on this issue, is equally shocked.
Funny. His hockey stick appears to be the only reason he was elevated to his recent throne.
Mann’s path to the IPCC : http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5700
Did a Secret Climate Deal Launch the Hockey Stick Fakery? by John O’Sullivan
Michael Mann — the guy who not only produced the Hockey Stick but also used the Tiljander data and turned it upside down to suit his desired result , not once but twice. So why anyone would listen to a word he says is beyond me. It says something about UK television that they’d have him on their program.
Oh, now let’s be fair to “Modest Mike”, eh?! … Here’s a comment of his on the Second Order Draft of WG 1, CH 6:
“The authors of this chapter should request an explanation from the lead authors of the SPM of why there is not a single graphic from the chapter shown in the SPM. Every other major section of the SPM has at least one supporting graphic. The lack of a supporting graphic in the A Paleoclimate Perspective section is effectively a slap in the face to chapter 6 authors. It also sends a disturbing message that AR4 is somehow backing away from paleoclimate-based claims made in the TAR where the results from paleoclimate studies were highlighted. Yet, a reading of chapter 6 shows no such thing, and in fact reveals more robust evidence in support of the key conclusions. Chapter 6 highlights the fact that there are now a large number of different paleoclimate studies which all lead to the same key conclusion that northern hemisphere mean temperatures in recent decades are likely unprecedented in at least a millennial timeframe. Moreover, several of the newer studies extend these conclusions back to at least the past 2000 years. It was a mistake for the authors of the SPM in the TAR to show only one reconstruction (that of Mann et al, ’99) when in fact there were multiple reconstructions shown in the body of the report (chapter 2) which supported the main conclusion regarding anomalous late 20th century warmth. This clearly set up one study as a straw man for attack. AR4 has an opportunity to undo the damage of that unfortunate decision, and show in the SPM Figure 6.10 which indicates that the key conclusions regarding recent hemispheric warmth in a millennial context are now supported by more than a dozen different reconstructions taking into account the ensemble of uncertainties associated with the different reconstructions. [Michael Mann (Reviewers comment ID #: 156-55)] ”
How could anyone possibly have missed the overwhelming import of his “ensemble of uncertainties”?
Mann is misplaced. Doesn’t know where he stands.
The Hockey Stick of Damoceles has boomeranged.
hr001:
“I would be careful about using other, independent paleo reconstruction work as supporting the MBH reconstructions.
I am attaching my version of a comparison of the bulk of these other reconstructions. Although these all show the hockey stick shape, the differences between them prior to 1850 make me very nervous.
If I were on the greenhouse deniers’ side, I would be inclined to focus on the wide range of paleo results and the differences between them as an argument for dismissing them all. ”
-Tom Wigley, in the emails.
Many have indeed pointed the wide variation in question
Edward Bancroft says:
June 29, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I was interested to see the comments by Tim Yeo, government spokesman on climate change, who is also my Member of Parliament (MP).
From this fortnight’s Private Eye No.1265, page 9
“Yeo’s first committee task will be to examine this month’s National Audit Office report on government funding for renewable energy, covering taxpayer incentives and the ‘renewables obligation’ scheme that forces electricity generators to invest in green energy.
“How effective this is in reducing carbon emissions is moot – but it certainly benefits companies like alkaline fuel cell developer AFC Energy. It has already signed a deal under the scheme with Centrica and just happens to employ Yeo as its £45,000-a-year chairman. Yeo is also director of eco-businesses Waste2Tricity and ITI Energy, hefty interests that will no doubt be routinely declared before his committee’s proceedings.
“The government can in any case be expected to take a thoroughly commercial approach to global warming thanks in no small part to Chris Huhne’s new climate change minister Gregory Barker. Until the election Barker combined his role as MP and shadow climate change minister with a £60,000-a-year job advising Pegasus Capital, a US-based private equity firm that backs a number of green technology firms. In the run-up to the election he received £25,000 worth of ‘research assistance’ from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association – which says a lot about where the real interest in green technology lies.”
Perry
$160 per month for electricity seems excessive. I pay $42 per month. My main fuel usage however is natural gas for which I pay $130 per month (recent increase). I use 13 times more (in kWh terms) gas than electricity pa; 32000 kWh v 25oo kWh
@Peter Plail
As you mention, there has been a remarkable change in the UK news coverage of climate change. Until recently the BBC – and the Daily Telegraph – only gave one side of the debate. Their coverage was uniformaly biased in favour of catastrophic AGW.
But what a change we see now. Here is the BBC’s flagship program actually speaking to both sides of the debate (though I would describe John Christy more as a lukewarmer). It’s a shame they didn’t speak to Richard Lindzen. Their survey showed clearly that most people are sceptical.
Prof Bob Watson’s comments were revealing: he believes this nonsense because, basically, we don’t understand it, so it musty be the fault of human emissions. It’s sad to see science brought so low. Shouldn’t they be presenting hard evidence that proves AGW? Assuming it exists, of course. Their problem is that the hard AGW predictions, as demonstrated so ably by Lindzen, are wrong. In some cases, not only does AGW fail to predict the right values that have been empirically measured but they even get the sign wrong!
@ Edward Bancroft,
Actually, it seems that the Conservative party harbours many sceptics, some of them quite senior: Anne Widecombe, Peter Lilley, Nigel Lawson and some others. Oh, yes, and Mrs Thatcher, though it’s been some time since she was an MP. The news about Mrs Thatcher emerged only recently, thanks to Christopher Booker.
Of the three major parties, probably the Conservatives are most likely to become more sceptical, though it will obviously take time. Meanwhile, we have a Lib Dem in charge of our energy. Now that’s what I call a climate disaster….
Chris
Perry
I pay $330 per annum buildings and contents insurance. You need to shop around a bit get some insulation in your house and stop whinging.
Michael Mann works steadily and hard at what he does at Pennsylvania State University (he’s got a job for life there). He receives high praise and plaudits from all corners of the globe especially from the UN and jerk politicians such as Al Gore and the one term wonder Obama Whatsit. why should he be concerned about the opinions of a bunch of sceptics who seemed to be mostly asleep whilst was laying the bedrock foundations for AGW.
If the gray bars are error bars, then I find it rather interesting that the error bars totally go away with the red “measured” (and averaged, interpolated) data from potentially suspect sites. No uncertainty at all with todays “measures!”
Correction why should he be concerned….whilst he was laying the bedrock foundations of AGW.
Correction Why……
“However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were “uncertainties” in his work.”
A common defensive reaction for any person about to be submitted to an examination through an attorney general’s fraud microscope…….
rbateman says:
June 29, 2010 at 9:27 pm
rbateman,
The “hockey stick of Damoceles . . .”, priceless. Thanks for a little humor.
John
Jose Suro says:
June 30, 2010 at 5:13 am
Jose Suro,
Also maybe a defensive move prior the imminent PSU investigation report? Maybe it will not be a 100% whitewash? I think it makes me a hopeless optimist to even imagine that the upcoming PSU report may actually have some critical evaluation of Mann’s professional behavior. Hey, sometimes even optimists are right. Right?
John
Are the rats starting to desert the ship?
Has anyone mentioned the stimulus money that Mann and Penn State received? It makes it a bit easier for a rat to desert a ship when they can afford a comfortable lifeboat (or golden parachute.)
However will people forget what bullies the rats were, when they overran the ship? It makes me cringe to look back and see how other, more honest scientists had to walk on eggs, to avoid upsetting the politically correct people who handed out the funding.
For example, good work was done, studying the Vikings in Greenland, but the archeologists involved had to be very, very careful not to make it too clear that Mann was full of bleep, when he “smoothed out” the MWP. For if they did, what do you think their chances of getting more funding would have been?
Someday those Greenland archeologists are going to blush, when their papers are re-read, for it will be obvious they were walking on eggs, but what could they do? They were honest, decent and somewhat meek scientists who wanted to research Vikings in Greenland. They had no great interest in fighting city hall. In most cases fighting city hall doesn’t get you the funding you need, if you deeply desire to study grains of pollen in frozen dung from the year 1325 in Greenland.
Mann, on the other hand, has his stimulus money. That’s what you get, when you go along with city hall in a big way. Once you have a big wad of dough stashed away, it is easier to speak out against authority, especially when that authority is facing rebellion, and the ship is starting to sink.
Mann’s problem is that he is too connected to the authority he now dares to question. When that ship goes down, it will make a mighty whirlpool, and such whirlpools are known to suck down lifeboats, even comfortable Penn State lifeboats full of fat rats.
As others have pointed out, contrary to what I said, this graph does have error bars. Looking at the contortions Mann did to produce this graph, see CA, the numbers represented for the data and the errors are meaningless, and the latter are ridiculously tight. See:
BBk says: June 30, 2010 at 4:26 am
If the gray bars are error bars, then I find it rather interesting that the error bars totally go away with the red “measured” (and averaged, interpolated) data from potentially suspect sites. No uncertainty at all with todays “measures!”
Even todays’ measurements are so screwed with, the error bars are meaningless as well. The presentation of the error as shown is only to impress the observer with the quality of the data. I find the whole presentation of sigma in climate science, maybe it is common in the natural sciences, as shown on charts to be a silly representation of confidence. In industry, with applied science, we beat processes into control so that three sigma variation is within specs. Data is shown with +/-3 sigma deviations, as all data within that range is considered a ‘normal’ or Gaussian distribution. Showing one ‘conjured’ sigma is supposed to convey confidence in nonsense.
Speaking of icons, I’d like to conduct an informal poll. Specifically, Michael Mann’s countenance should be the official icon for which of the following (check all that apply)
Arrogance
Academic Censorship
Duplicity, Duplicity
Sainthood
The NHL
Mad Magazine
The truth is out there. Mann juggled the evidence to produce the graph he wanted. He has to be called to account for what he did. In the real world, this is called fraud and is punishable.
Interesting about the panorama programme, that I missed, not having a TV.
By coincidence, I wrote to my MP shortly after, with a long letter querying the CAGW panic and various Govt policies, and calling for a 12 month pause for review. I was rather rude about windmills, too. No doubt it will have little direct effect, but “every little helps”, and my MP is a new girl (Conservative), so who knows? Blessedly,I was spared having to vote for Barker, the new junior Climate Minister reportedly of dubious reputation, by a boundary change. He used to be my MP.
I mention this ‘cos a lot of what I have learned about climate is down to you guys and the links posted on this and allied blogs, so thank you.
Regretably, we need a cold spell to halt the AGW gravy train, ‘cos complex science facts probably won’t….cold is bad so I can’t even wish for it…..but the Sun & the planet & the oceans ignore us all anyway, I think?
Steve Keohane says:
June 29, 2010 at 6:58 am
Mann is full of it. If there are ‘uncertainties’, where are the error bars?
See the gray area in the graph?
(easy, isn’t it)
wobble asked: (June 29, 2010 at 7:03 am): “What happened to the full investigation Penn State was supposed to conduct? Did they ever release their findings and determinations?”
The final report is out. You can read about it here:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/01/michael-mann-hockey-stick-exonerated-penn-state/
Here is the report itself:
http://live.psu.edu/fullimg/userpics/10026/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf
Kieth in Hastings
I wrote to David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Prince Charles, Melvyn Bragg and others about the madness of committing billions of pounds to combat AGW on the basis of flawed science. The best response came Gordon Brown (the then PM) who after replying, passed my letter onto the DECC (Energy and Climate Change). I exchanged a number of letters with them revealing to me just how limited their knowledge was, particularly of Planck’s law and Wien’s law wrt the absorption of infra red by atmospheric CO2.
Most politicians see low carbon technologies as a stimulus to future economic growth, reduced dependence on imports rather than a colossal waste of money, resources and being completely unnecessary