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.
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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
@ur momisuglyPeter 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!
@ur momisugly 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