Mann at Orange County Water Conference – emotional presentation, polar bears threatened, still thinks snows of Kilimanjaro are receding due to 'climate change'

Readers may recall: The question put to Dr. Mann at Disneyland today where WUWT regular Roger Sowell was one of the rare skeptics that got to ask Dr. Mann a question.

The video is now online of the event.

Sowell’s question starts at around 59:35 minutes, Mann’s answer ends about 1:03:10

UPDATE:

Dr. Mann’s slide presentation is available at this link. Note the polar bear on the ice floe.

http://www.ocwatersummit.com/   backup link: MichaelMann_OCWS  (PDF 24mb)

I find it fascinating that Mann is still pushing the now long debunked claims about the Snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Even Mann’s buddies Lonnie Thompson and Phil Jones privately admit the issue is local deforestation/evapotranspiration and not “climate change”. It is mind blowing he’s still pushing this.

Note point 3 in this image in his last slide:

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Ville
June 26, 2012 4:51 am

Mann gave a one line response that took 3 minutes to speak. He stupefyed the audience. His talk is impossible to understand.

Olavi
June 26, 2012 4:52 am

Small point in question as wrong, and Mann turned whole thing UPSIDE DOWN.

JPY
June 26, 2012 5:03 am

I think it’s hilarious that you are highlighting (as some sort of triumph?) the ridiculously ignorant question posed by Sowell. It pretty clearly underlines that the issues here aren’t about accuracy and science, but rather about attacks on people.
[A bit like your post you mean? . . kbmod]

Gail Combs
June 26, 2012 5:19 am

GOOD
Glad to see the information is getting out.

g.c.
June 26, 2012 5:27 am

TerryS says:
June 26, 2012 at 2:01 am
Summary:
Greenland ice core data does not agree with climate models that have CO2 as a main forcing. Therefore Greenland ice core data needs to be adjusted.
________________________________
Beat me to it.
Real world evidence does not agree with Climate Model supporting CO2 as control knob so real world data has to be “Adjusted.” HMMMmmm Haven’t we heard this somewhere before? Perhaps in a ice hockey stadium?

James Sexton
June 26, 2012 5:28 am

It would be nice to get a transcript. I do give Mann credit. That was quite a dance. Like a boxer pinned to the ropes, the aggressor left an opening out, and the deft moved away.
This should be instructive. Get the ducks in order first. Lesson learned.

g.c.
June 26, 2012 5:30 am

OOPs sorry, Mods Wrong thread. I have not been able to get Word Press to let me comment on “We don’t believe the ice cores can be interpreted purely as a signal of temperature” so was trying a different e-mail and my initials Gail Combs (g.c.)

ponysboy
June 26, 2012 6:42 am

An irresponsible question by Sowell who didn’t do his homework or got some bad information on which to base his question. Mann answered it clearly. I don’t know if it was honestly, but it came across as a positive for Mann. Irresponsible public goofs like Sowell’s doesn’t help the search for truth to be taken seriously.

mfo
June 26, 2012 6:44 am

Quick and rough transcript courtesy of a friendly typist:
Roger Sowell:
In your famous paper that you co-authored with Dr Briffa and Dr Hughes in 1998, indeed you showed one result from that today with the Hockey Stick graph, you showed a warming since 1960.
However you chose to not use tree core data after 1960 and instead to splice in the instrumental temperature record. In effect to hide the decline of the trees after 1960.…
How do you respond to the charge that the tree ring data was cherry picked to show a desired result and that Mr Steve McIntyre has falsified your work by showing that the premise of a hockey stick falls apart when all the data is used?
++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr Mann:
Okay there are a number of factually incorrect things that you’ve said there, one of which is that I co-authored a paper with Keith Briffa. I think you’re referring to the paper that we published in Nature in 1998, myself, Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes. Keith Briffa was not a co-author of that paper and in fact it’s an important point because you’ve actually conflated two entirely unrelated studies.
The study you’re actually referring to is a study by Keith Briffa and colleagues that I was not part of, and the original paper that they published in 1998, also in Nature, was about the decline you’re talking about.
It was hardly hidden. The paper that they published in 1998 was specifically about a problem known as the divergence problem where in the particular type of tree ring data that they used in their study, which we did not use in our study, by the way, that particular data exhibit this enigmatic decline in the response to temperatures after 1960.
And so their original paper was actually about how that particular type of data can not be used to depict temperature trends in recent centuries, because of the enigmatic change in the response of trees.
Now scientists have been studying for more than a decade now why it might be that those particular data, late wood density, maximum late wood density, from high latitude trees they were using, why that happens, why there is a decline in the response of temperature.
And there are various factors that scientists think might be responsible, including pollution, other limiting conditions that are now taking control of tree growth that are unrelated to temperature.
So unfortunately you conflated two completely unrelated things in a way that led to, you know, a claim, sort of an allegation about our work, that simply has no basis in reality.
It’s part of why I wrote The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, to try to clear the record with regard to many of the specious attacks and criticisms that have been made against me and my colleagues over the years in an effort to try to discredit our work.
Typically in an effort to try to discredit the entire work of the world’s climate scientists that establishes the reality of human caused climate change.
Because some people do feel threatened by that conclusion and rather than, unfortunately, rather than engaging in the good faith debate that can be had about what to do about the problem.
That’s part of why we’re here today. What can we do about the problem? We can have a good faith debate about that. There’s a worthy debate to be had, about that, and there are valid opinions on all sides.
But there isn’t a worthy debate to be had any more about the reality of human caused climate change.

cd_uk
June 26, 2012 7:05 am

No wonder they gave Sowell a question. Talk about setting up your opponents strawman. This couldn’t have been sweeter for Mann.

June 26, 2012 7:21 am

Typically in an effort to try to discredit the entire work of the world’s climate scientists that establishes the reality of human caused climate change.
Because some people do feel threatened by that conclusion and rather than, unfortunately, rather than engaging in the good faith debate that can be had about what to do about the problem.

Note the morph from AGW is real, to its a problem without any justification.

June 26, 2012 7:30 am

Real scientists do not pretend to know in fifty years what the global climate of the world will be. Nevertheless, the legitimization of a secular, socialist state bureaucracy demands just that from government-funded scientists.
http://evilincandescentbulb.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/climatists-exposed-naked-reality-and-know-the-unknown/

Alan the Brit
June 26, 2012 7:35 am

Still think it was rather appropriate that such a talk should have been given at Disneyland, you know, the place where fiction & fantasy reign supreme, & wierd & wonderful things happen to you in the land of make believe! Priceless :-))

Jeremy
June 26, 2012 7:52 am

Uh, Sowell blew it 🙁
That question was conflating two different issues and papers, and was poorly stated.

theduke
June 26, 2012 7:54 am

Give Mann credit. He’s deft on his feet. He uses an inaccuracy in the question by Sowell to knock him down a notch, and then gives a plausible response– it’s bull—– but it’s plausible.
Then he plugs his book.
Unconvincing, but clever.

June 26, 2012 8:10 am

Dr. Mann’s slide presentation is available at this link. Note the polar bear on the ice floe.
http://www.ocwatersummit.com/

Peter
June 26, 2012 8:22 am

[snip . . OT . . you could be mistaken for a troll but I am sure that isn’t your intention. . . kbmod]

Philhippos
June 26, 2012 8:33 am

There’s normal drivel and then there’s Mann made drivel.

Keitho
Editor
June 26, 2012 8:41 am

I had no idea Amsterdam, Venice and New Orleans were threatened by a volcano. Boy , you live and learn.

Hyperthermania
June 26, 2012 8:45 am

Roger – did you have to submit your question in advance ? ie did they know what you were going to ask before giving you the opportunity to ask it ?

June 26, 2012 8:55 am

Keith Battye says:
June 26, 2012 at 8:41 am
I had no idea Amsterdam, Venice and New Orleans were threatened by a volcano. Boy , you live and learn.

And 133,000 square miles of coral are going to — what, dissolve? Go for a walk?

June 26, 2012 8:58 am

Notice that their propaganda doesn’t change, it doesn’t evolve in response to changed conditions. It’s a weakness.
Pointman

June 26, 2012 8:58 am

That slide is a perfect example of the level of being each other’s booster club that goes on in these best practices pushes by statists or Research Grant Grovellers who don’t want to admit that’s what is going on.
Hansen cites Mann. Mann calls Hansen “reknowned”. Neither one’s research or theories or facts change but it seemingly gets bolstered anyway just through references.
Reminds me of a National Governors Association report I read last year that’s recommendations were based on an erroneous assertion that had a footnote. Making it seem valid. You go to the back where the footnotes are and the link is to a previous NGA report.
Nothing backing it up at all but wishful thinking to obtain grant money to then influence public policy. And we all go regulating along at great expense.

June 26, 2012 9:05 am

hyperthermania on June 26, 2012 at 8:45 am
“Roger – did you have to submit your question in advance ? ie did they know what you were going to ask before giving you the opportunity to ask it ?”
No.

Jon
June 26, 2012 9:08 am
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