Mann gets Medal

From Penn State,  the best news they’ve had all month:

Mann to receive Hans Oeschger Medal from European Geosciences Union

Michael Mann, professor of meteorology and geosciences and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State, was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union.

The medal was established in 2001 in recognition of the scientific achievements of Hans Oeschger to honor outstanding scientists whose work is related to climate: past, present and future.

Mann’s research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system. He is best known for the “hockey stick,” a chart he and his co-authors published in 1999 using proxy climate data such as tree-rings and ice cores to estimate temperatures over the past thousand years. The hockey stick demonstrated that temperatures had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels and is the subject of Mann’s new book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars,” due out in early 2012.

Mann received his undergraduate degrees in physics and applied math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Yale University. He was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report and has served as chair for the National Academy of Sciences “Frontiers of Science.” In 2007 he shared the Nobel Prize with other IPCC lead authors.

He will receive his award during the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union, April 22-27, 2012, in Vienna, Austria. Mann will also present a Medal Lecture during the conference.

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Coldish
November 17, 2011 1:38 am

John Mitchell (EGU medal winner 2004) works for the UK government’s Met(eorological) Office, where his curent duties include “…handling concerns of those skeptical about climate change .”

Joe Horner
November 17, 2011 2:20 am

In the British forces there is (was??) a long-standing joke about our American friends getting medals with their cornflakes* but at least, in the words of the song, “They don’t give a Purple Heart for a fallen arch”.
Having already lowered the established standards for science, it seems the climate science community would like to drop the bar on gongs too!
* It’s only jealousy because they get more than us 😉

Greg Holmes
November 17, 2011 2:24 am

Hi, all, birds of a feather flock together. Lets keep hunting them, they are losing out now big time.
PS.
Antony, dump the link.

chuck nolan
November 17, 2011 2:49 am

I’m not surprised about this because of something I read in the climategate emails. Who was it that was trying to help get Phil Jones some sort of recognition or into some organization and was expecting to get nice letters of recommendation later? Kind of like ‘I’ll get everybody to support you and you can do the same for me.’ Makes one wonder how things work in their world.

Shevva
November 17, 2011 2:54 am

G. Karst says:
November 16, 2011 at 8:58 pm
This medal should be presented on the top of a log book. GK
More like a leaflet on the scientific method with the bit about releasing of data so your results can be reproduced would be a good start.

CodeTech
November 17, 2011 2:55 am

Judging by the number of “snip”s in the first few comments, a lot of people feel about the same as I do about the quality and accuracy of Mann’s work. And hairstyle.
Fact is, as far as I can tell the majority of Mann’s contribution has been thoroughly and scientifically debunked. Being debunked is a particular kind of insult… usually it’s rumors and conspiracy theories that need debunking, not an individual’s work.
The thing about the hockey stick: it IS iconic, yes. But just because something is iconic doesn’t in any way imply accuracy. I’m certain most people think that thing has stood the test of rigorous peer-reviewed scrutiny. And if not, hey, we should all “do our part” to “tackle” “climate change”… just in case. Because, you know, we can’t afford to be wrong.
Anyway, this actually sounds like something that could be an episode of Big Bang Theory… except all of the guys on that show are actually… um… intelligent…

DirkH
November 17, 2011 3:07 am

When something starts with European and ends with Union you know it’s corrupt.

bismuth
November 17, 2011 3:19 am

As an engineer I find it very depressing that institutions that should promote science for the benefit of humanity (the first thing we are impressed with in engineering) do the exact opposite. On what seems a daily basis they drag themselves into political frauds for the only purpose of remaining on the correct side of politically correct money dispensers. Awards in science have become as nonsensical as those for journalim (see Kouric, Katie).

Martin A
November 17, 2011 3:19 am

Excellent news. We now know exactly where the European Geosciences Union stands.
(My boss used to tell me that my ability to find gold nuggets in piles of [deleted] was valuable.

November 17, 2011 3:20 am

OT.
Road to education is harder for some.
I found this fascinated, but if you don’t understand Chinese as I don’t, wind forward to 4min30sec and compare to your own experience travelling to school or college, fortunately this is only at the start and the end of each semester, it’s a boarding school.

November 17, 2011 3:25 am

4 Dec 07 email 119687266 : Mike Mann to Phil Jones
By the way, I am still looking into nominating you for an American Geophysical Union award; I’ve been told that the Ewing medal wouldn’t be the right one. Let me know if you have any particular options you’d like me to investigate…..
Jones to Mann
As for the American Geophysical Union—just getting one of their Fellowships would be fine. …….
Mann to Jones
I will look into the American Geophysical Union Fellowship situation as soon as possible.
16 May 09 email 124274957 : Mike Mann to Phil Jones
On a completely unrelated note, I was wondering if you, perhaps in tandem with some of the other usual suspects, might be interested in returning the favor (of being awarded a Fellowship of the American Geophysical Union) this year ? ……..
Anyway, I don’t want to pressure you in any way, but if you think you’d be willing to help organize, I would naturally be much obliged.
So, Dr Mann is now being awarded a medal by the EGU. Ho, hum !

Marion
November 17, 2011 3:30 am

Interesting that Ray Bradley was one member of the panel awarding the medal!!
http://www.egu.eu/awards-medals/award-medal-committees.html
Oh, and that Phil Jones is also a previous recipient – what a small incestuous world climate science is!!

Barry Day
November 17, 2011 3:43 am

“Mann gets Medal”…Why am I thinking, yeah but it’s “FOOLS GOLD”?

Marion
November 17, 2011 3:44 am

DirkH says:
November 17, 2011 at 3:07 am
“When something starts with European and ends with Union you know it’s corrupt.”
Totally agree Dirk, after all it was the EU that made sure there were mountains of money available for climate scientists but only if they came up with the ‘right’ answers of course –
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/43291

Steve C
November 17, 2011 3:54 am

It seems you can get a medal, or a Nobel Peace Prize, or whatever, for just about anything these days. The rest of my comment is self-censored, to save the mods time – feel free to provide your own invective.

Steve from Rockwood
November 17, 2011 3:57 am

Climate scientists giving other climate scientists medals. Congratulations.
And a life time supply of turd polish to boot.

mat
November 17, 2011 3:58 am

Nice for him! but a medal no more makes him a good man then the plastic star I got in a Christmas cracker makes me a copper !!

derspatz
November 17, 2011 4:04 am

It’s a sting to get him out of the country, right ?
regarDS

November 17, 2011 4:26 am

Thanks for giving me a much needed laugh today!

Roger Knights
November 17, 2011 4:38 am

This award can convey an unintended message, namely:
1. Mann is the best of the bunch.
2. Therefore, the rest of the bunch are worse than Mann!

Bill Illis
November 17, 2011 5:00 am

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
November 16, 2011 at 8:54 pm
——————–
Regarding Mann and naming the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. He only claims he came up with the name for it in 2000 in an interview he gave to Richard Kerr (the editor of Nature at the time). Schlesinger and Ramankutty did not name it in their 1994 paper.
Richard Kerr also wrote an editorial about the Oscillation in Nature in 2000 which coincided with Mann and Delworth’s paper which outlined the oscillation pattern over a few centuries. An interview Kerr had with Mann was published in a few newspapers and that is where the name AMO first came up.
2000 was just the period when the community was starting to recognize that the North Atlantic’s oscillations were being connected with different climate patterns around the world in a number of different papers. An important one in 1999 connected rainfall patterns in Brazil and West Africa very closely with the oscillations. Before that, there was no AMO and the science didn’t start to address it until after that. Think about that, just 10 years ago.

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
November 17, 2011 5:06 am

The Hans Oeschger Medal Committee (source):
Dominique Raynaud (Chair) – 2008 Winner
Thomas Stocker – 2009 Winner, “Co-Chair Working Group I, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (since 2008)” (info).
Francoise Gasse – 2010 Winner
Jean Jouzel – Vice President of IPCC Scientific Council
Robert Delmas – 2011 Winner
and
Ray Bradley – 2007 Winner and Mann’s “Hockey Stick” co-author.
Yup, truly a fitting Peer Reviewed award for Michael Mann. I’m sure all the past winners will be glad to have Mann in their illustrious group in the years to come.

Luther Wu
November 17, 2011 5:10 am

All previous recipients of this prize were also adherents to the meme…

November 17, 2011 5:11 am

Appraised of the fact that David Falkner had uttered at 7:58 PM on 16 November an OT post consisting of nothing but personal insult addressed to me (“I remember you. Yes, it must be hard to see with your head in there.“), Mr. Watts had inserted:

REPLY: “…lance this pustule of a Falkner?” Please, use plain English to describe your request. And no, you don’t get to declare “open anything”, it isn’t your blog. If you want to go off on a tear, do it someplace else. – Anthony

Mr. Watts, you had objected in another thread to my engagement in the discussion of matters peripheral but pertinent to the patterns of conduct demonstrated by the administration of the institution where Dr. Michael E. Mann is presently employed, as well as to my incidental focus on the clinically pernicious effects of perpetuating a wildly popular, hysterical, hypocritical, and false concept. I believe I described it as “the psychiatric equivalent of a death sentence.”
Think of that concept as a sort of medical equivalent of the CAGW fraud.
Mr. Falkner was one of several vociferous…people…who had received my observations in that thread with insult addressed not to the substance of my comments but to me personally, and in his cited post, insult was the entirety of Mr. Falkner‘s contribution to discussion.
Because this “isn’t [my] blog,” I took pains to provide you with notification of Mr. Falkner‘s conduct before addressing this pustule directly and incisively.
After all, it isyour blog.”

Coldish
November 17, 2011 5:16 am

chuck nolan says:
November 17, 2011 at 2:49 am
“I’m not surprised about this because of something I read in the climategate emails. Who was it that was trying to help get Phil Jones some sort of recognition or into some organization and was expecting to get nice letters of recommendation later? Kind of like ‘I’ll get everybody to support you and you can do the same for me.”
It was Michael Mann. The organisation was the AGU (American Geophysical Union). Mann pulled strings to get Jones elected to a fellowship (a highly regarded honorary position) , which duly occurred in 2009. The payback was that Jones was expected to return the favour by in turn proposing or supporting Mann for a fellowship, although at the start Mann didn’t spell this part of the deal out to Jones. I think this ambition of Mann’s was stymied by Climategate.

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