After being caught out claiming he was a “Nobel Prize recipient” in his original complaint (then having to retract it), it seems Mann and his lawyers just don’t have the good sense to know when to stop. In this case Mann has been “hoisted by his own petard”. His very own words condemn him. Again.
Steve McIntyre writes of a find by CA regular, Jean S.:
In Mann’s current Reply Memorandum (using identical wording to the January 2013 memorandum), Mann accused CEI of trying to “obfuscate”, claiming that the “misleading” comment had “absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Mann, or with any graph prepared by him”, that the “misleading” comment was directed only to the WMO 1999 graphic, in which Mann had no involvement:
In their brief, the CEI Defendants suggest that the University of East Anglia’s investigation actually found that the hockey stick graph was “misleading” because it did not identify that certain data was “truncated” and that other proxy and instrumental temperature data had been spliced together. See CEI Anti-SLAPP Mem. at 16-17; NRO Mem. at 35. This allegation is yet another example of Defendants’ attempts to obfuscate the evidence in this case. The “misleading” comment made in this report had absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Mann, or with any graph prepared by him. Rather, the report’s comment was directed at an overly simplified and artistic depiction of the hockey stick that was reproduced on the frontispiece of the World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999.41 Dr. Mann did not create this depiction, and the attempt to suggest that this report suggested an effort by Dr. Mann to mislead is disingenuous.
CEI had raised both the WMO 1999 and IPCC 2001 diagrams, but Mann ignored the finding in relation to the IPCC 2001 diagram (where he could not dispute his association) and fired back only on the WMO 1999, claiming with faux outrage that Mann had had nothing to do with the WMO 1999 and was merely an attempt to “obfuscate” – a somewhat ironic accusation given the massive misrepresentation of the inquiries by Mann and his lawyers.
Now Climategate emails (especially CG2) showed that Jones had corresponded with Mann in the preparation of the WMO cover and that Mann had signed off on both Jones’ splicing of proxy and instrumental records and Jones’ truncation of the Briffa reconstruction. So Mann’s outrage seemed pretty stretched.
But Jean S has found something even more damning. In Mann’s own CV, Mann lists himself as a coauthor of the WMO 1999 diagram 🙂 :
Mann’s claim that the WMO diagram “had absolutely nothing to do with Dr. Mann” stands exposed as yet another porky by Mann and his lawyers.
======================================================
Full story here: http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/10/another-porky-from-mann-williams-and-fontaine/
Mann’s CV here: Mann_Vitae (PDF) you can find the reference on page 15.
UPDATE: My check of the WMO website prior to publishing this story found no online version of their 50th anniversary publication. WUWT commenter John West finds the original cover art and citation from another source:
And here is the cover:
[ UPDATE2: WMO link (h/t Barry Woods) to that 50th edition – https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/913_en.pdf ]
Without question, this is Mann’s work, from the document, the citation on page 2, bold mine:
WMO-No. 913
© 2000, World Meteorological Organization
ISBN 92-63-10913-3
Front cover: Northern Hemisphere temperatures were reconstructed for the past 1000 years (up to 1999) using palaeoclimatic records (tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, etc.), along with historical and long instrumental records. The data are shown as 50-year smoothed differences from the 1961–1990 normal.
Uncertainties are greater in the early part of the millennium (see page 4 for further information). For more details, readers are referred to the PAGES newsletter (Vol. 7, No. 1: March 1999, also available at http://www.pages.unibe.ch) and the National Geophysical Data Center (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov).
(Sources of data: P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa and T.J. Osborn, University of East Anglia, UK; M.E. Mann, University of Virginia, USA; R.S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, USA; M.K. Hughes, University of Arizona, USA; and the Hadley Centre, The Met. Office).
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For anyone who missed it, here is Mann’s picture of his fake Nobel Prize:
http://postimg.org/image/5bals29eb/
Happily, we can hope and even expect that a court of law will bother to untangle Mann’s web of lies. But in the court of public opinion? I transcribe only one side of an actual conversation with a randomly-selected man on the street (for fun, try to guess the questions be asked):
A: “Yes, I heard 97% of experts agree, so I believe climate change is a real problem.”
A: “Who’s Michael Mann?”
A: “What’s a tree ring?”
I believe the more common response to the second question would be “You mean the actor?”.
You must live in a better neighborhood than I do.
Look at what’s being claimed: “Northern Hemisphere temperatures were reconstructed for the past 1000 years (up to 1999) using palaeoclimatic records (tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, etc.), along with historical and long instrumental records. The data are shown as 50-year smoothed differences from the 1961–1990 normal.”
Now look at the vertical axis of the graph.
The claim is being made that by using paleoclimatic records as described, anomalies can be determined for a thousand years ago down to hundredths of a degree.
Has this not seemed (let’s be polite) implausible to anyone involved in all of the arguments about this graph?
it is a genuine WMO document
Here it is on the WMO website
https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/913_en.pdf
Thanks Barry, navigating that WMO maze can be difficult. I spent 30 minutes trying to find it there last night.
So the question then becomes, will the judge view this as yet another attempt by plaintiff to perpetrate a not academic but legalistic fraud on the court?
Another question is, are Mann’s lawyers fed up with him yet? Has he misled them once too often?
What do the folks footing the bill for Mann’s lawsuit think now?
I read the blurb on the pdf file about the front cover. For whatever reason, there are blanks randomly inserted in the text, which look ugly in monospaced font. Here is my attempt at cleaning it up, hopefully catching all the spaces…
==================================
Front cover: Northern Hemisphere temperatures were reconstructed for the past 1000 years (up to 1999) using palaeoclimatic records (tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, etc.), along with historical and long instrumental records. The data are shown as 50-year smoothed differences from the 1961–1990 normal. Uncertainties are greater in the early part of the millennium (see page 4 for further information). For more details, readers are referred to the PAGES newsletter (Vol. 7, No. 1: March 1999, also available at
http://www.pages.unibe.ch) and the National Geophysical Data Center (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov).
(Sources of data: P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa and T.J. Osborn, University of East Anglia, UK; M.E. Mann, University of Virginia, USA; R.S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, USA; M.K. Hughes, University of Arizona, USA; and the Hadley Centre, The Met Office ).
==================================
Note that it does mention that temperatures were reconstructed using, amongst other things, tree rings and instrumental records. Would this be enough CYA if someone questioned the veracity of the data he contributed, given the splicing of tree-ring and instrumental data in his hockey stick? The fornt cover itself mentions “Annual from Mann et al. (1999) Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 759”. Does that paper mention the splicing? If not, it could be embarressing, especially in light of Climategate and “hide the decline”. I don’t think there would be any direct legal consequences from that, but it could hurt Mann’s credibility on the witness stand, and every little bit helps.
You know what following this fiasco on WUWT reminds me of? Reading Pamela Jones’ “Groklaw” blog during the course of SCO’s attempt to establish its ownership of linux.
May I urge a little caution? It is possible that there are two distinct documents. One is the 1999 WMO Status of the Climate report, published in 2000. Another is WMO 50th-anniversary report on temperature changes in the past millennium, also published in 2000. I have a copy of the former but cannot find the latter. Can anyone point me to a link? Until we can be sure that the graph in the latter is indeed the same as that in the former, it may be advisable to take care in what we say here.
I asked the same above, and got a couple of replies, but I am not yet totally convinced. We should probably wait to have copies of both, if two actually exist.
You can’t find the other one as it does not exist. This is the figure that was being discussed in the infamous trick-email, and the picture was already in my post about the trick along with a link to the actual report. They originally discussing it in this ClimateGate2 letter 0191.txt. From there you can see how Mike got his reference. As usual, even in this small matter he had to “spice it up” a bit.
Thanks Jean S. Now I have it clear. For me, this text in the ClimateGate2 letter proves that it is the same publication:
“There will be a press release in Geneva on Dec16 – they need two weeks
to approve the text internally. The full text of the report is then printed
during Feb 2000 – last year’s was 12 pages long. It will be released on
March 15 in Geneva to coincide with WM (World Met) day and the 50th
anniversary celebrations of WMO as well”
Apparently Mickey’s lawyers believe that any publicity is good publicity. And who am I to tell them they are wrong? Cha Ching!!!!
Its worth listening to richard Muller on “hide the decline”
Great video, bookmarked way back. Odd that Mann hasn’t gone for Muller as well.
Or maybe not.
I note that Cook has made no response to Duarte calling his 97% paper “fraudulent”.
Perfect occasion for Mann to say that ol’ the expression: “Hey, I resemble that remark!”
There is a transcript of the ‘hide the decline’ part of the Muller video:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20101001_m3
So, as Prof. Muller notes, science and humans are messy. In spite of that, the temperature record showing unprecedented warming over the past 100 years still stands. Also, the “decline” does not refer to a “decline in global temperature”. It actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations.
matayaya:
“Unprecedented” warming? Only if you cherry-pick a particular time frame like 100 years. The planet has been up to 12ºC warmer in the past, with no ill effects… and some folks are worrying about a 2º rise.
Show me how the recent temperature fluctuations are anything other than natural climate variability. The *very* minor, 0.7ºC wiggle in temperatures is extremely minor. It is even questionable whether current instrumentation can accurately measure changes that small over 100 years.
By using a normal, one-degree chart instead of the somewhat preposterous tenth and hundreth of a degree scales, we get a normal record produced by NADSA/GISS:
http://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/image_thumb265.png?w=636&h=294
Tell me: are you still scared? Really?
Also, the “decline” does not refer to a “decline in global temperature”. It actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations.
You’ve missed the point. If the thermometer record and the tree ring record depart from one another over a period of decades, representing 1/3 or more of the thermometer record, and there is no explanation for this, then the tree rings cannot be considered accurate for the centuries prior to the thermometer record. Hiding the decline is really hiding that fact that tree rings are nearly useless as a proxy for temperature, and AR3 and AR4 conclusions are nearly all derived from this obviously useless data. That’s what is really being hidden here.
Explain the word “hide”. There is no plausible accounting for the choice of that single word except to signal a clear intention to deceive. Taken together with other expressions of these “scientists” to hide the data upon which their olympian pronouncements were erected, that clear intention is persistently sustained.
“hide”, that is from an email (stolen) written by Phil Jones of CRU. It’s a bit technical, I don’t fully follow it; but perfectly innocent. It was not referring to recent warming as you all insist. It’s something to do with tree ring density data after 1960 that should not be used to infer temperature. Overall proxy data ended in 1980 so no reconstruction could occur after that. The reconstruction to that point stands regardless the tree ring data.
The bottom line is that AGW theory stands based on many other studies and much empirical evidence unrelated to the hockey stick. The obsession with the personality of Mann is a tactic to distract from the complexity of the actual science.
“stolen” or leaked?
And it was about hiding a decline in the proxy values post 1960. They were not following the temperatures.
Which means:
A. Proxies did not follow them before 1960
or
B. The “team” manipulated the temperatures post 1960 to show an increase that is not real.
In either case, it is devastating to the cause because it shows that Mann’s hokey stick and all those hokey sticks were created with data that does not fit the model.
No, only the tree ring proxy data after 1960 was excluded or “hidden”. Proxy records stop around 1980 and instrument records take over. All the other proxy data was just fine. Lots of studies in the public record on why the tree ring data was not used after 1960. No conspiracies.
You agree with me and then do a big butt. So you are wrong.
If the proxy data is wrong with accurate information, how do you determine it is correct with no information? Simply put, if you cannot track temperatures NOW with tree rings as it does not match, what evidence do you have that it ever did?
So your stupid statement about “all other proxy data is just fine” is hogwash!
And I mentioned no conspiracies. That is just a strawman on your part.
If you overlay the temperature instrument record from 1880 to 1960 with the tree ring proxy data of that period, you get a pretty good match. That’s the way proxy data works going back further using ice core, lake sediments, tree rings, coral, stalagmites, historical data, etc.. If you overlay it and see confirmation of a trend, then you have something useful. No single proxy data by itself can be conclusive.
Richard: ‘Please note that I am not a lawyer and I am not an American…’
Me neither, so we’re on a level playing field there.
‘citation of the graph as part of his CV is a claim that “he (part) created the graph…’
It could also mean he contributed data but was not the graphic artist.
‘And i am asking you to help me to understand how and why it’s “not the same thing”.’
I will use what I think is a useful analogy. In this post I have used some of your words as part of the creation of my post. But my use of your words in this post is not the same thing as your use of your words in your post.
In your post, your words serve to make certain assertions and ask questions. I am incorporating your words into my post for different purposes, ie to respond to your assertions and hopefully answer your questions.
Therefore, even though the words I quote are identical to the words you use, they are not ‘the same thing’ because I am using them for my purposes and the context has changed.
Exactly, apparently the cover graph was prepared by Tim Osborne using the data from the three papers cited on the front page. The decision to use that as the cover page was made by WMO, Phil Jones had a vote, Mann was not present.
Brendan H says:
It could also mean he contributed data but was not the graphic artist.
Is Mann’s name appended? If his name is attached to the document, then he owns it.
dbstealey: ‘Is Mann’s name appended? If his name is attached to the document, then he owns it.’
Not quite that simple, especially when it comes to collaborative projects such as publishing. For example, the policy for WUWT says, ‘You are responsible for your own words’, but also that posts are moderated for various reasons.
When WUWT celebrates a success, the various parties are acknowledged.
So it’s a two-way street.
And of course there’s also the matter of presentation, which can be argued forever.
Brendan,
Well, that’s a stretch. It’s not the same thing at all. If someone is posting here, it’s like their own separate little publication. That’s why they are responsible for what they post.
As Bob Kutz says below:
For him to now make a claim to the court that he had nothing to do with it is completely disingenuous.
Interesting to note that his own CV doesn’t even state the correct WMO publication. His CV states ” 50 Year Anniversary Publication: Temperature changes over the last Millennium, 2000″ but a quick review of the publications themselves shows his (attributed) cover was the 1999 edition, copyright 2000.
The 2000 edition has a cover showing a globe mostly depicting the antarctic with a UV index overlay. It is copyright 2001. This edition clearly refers to it’s status as the 50th anniversary edition, with a logo on the cover that shows 50, 1950 and 2000. The image on this cover is attributed to the Norwegian Institute for Air Research. His name does not appear in this document. At least not in the searchable contents.
Not only does he disavow the contents of his own CV in court filings, his CV makes factually untrue assertions. Is it really so difficult for him to get any single thing right?
Now, in all fairness, the 1999 edition’s forward, by someone named G.O.P. Obasi, mentions the 50th anniversary in the first paragraph. That doesn’t make his CV true. In fact, it doesn’t appear as though any of these documents contain the language “Temperature Changes over the last Millennium”.
Is almost as if there has to be a different WMO document than the ones I am looking at? Seems odd that his name and graph appear on one document so similar to what his CV claims if there’s another document out there that could easily be confused. If there is, I don’t seem to be able to find it online and Steyn’s website seems to think I have found the right document.
Regardless, Mann’s CV refers to the cover of the 2000 (50th Anniversary) document, his work appears in the 1999 edition, which clearly includes his work on the cover and attributes the image to him within the document itself. It is incorrect.
Even when he has no reason to lie, it seems he simply cannot get the truth right.
Sorry Lord M and Nylo, seems I’m a bit late to this party.
But it seems my thoughts were accurate. As to the notion that there is some difference between ‘they used his data to produce a simplified version that was inaccurate’ and ‘his graph’; that completely disappears when you take note that the document itself attributes the work to him and the cover is specifically listed on his CV.
For him to now make a claim to the court that he had nothing to do with it is completely disingenuous. For that to be true, he’d need a letter to WMO asking that they remove his name from future printings of the publication (disavowed the work) and he would have to tacitly deny the work by omitting it from his CV.
It’s inclusion thereon is his blessing.
Game, Set and Match, Dr. Mann.
This is EXACTLY what the climate models predicted.
dbstealey: ‘If someone is posting here, it’s like their own separate little publication.’
The law has yet to catch up with the legal status of blogs, so your claim in that sense is premature.
More importantly:
• The blog publication process includes the selection of guest articles
• Guest authors are expected to adhere to the blog publication policy
• Some guest articles are amended by the publisher
• Some comments are deleted; some comments are amended; some comments are subject to comment by the publisher or moderators
• The posters’ articles and comments are their own words
This suggests that the publication process is a collective enterprise, with expectations and privileges on both sides.
‘As Bob Kutz says below:
‘For him to now make a claim to the court that he had nothing to do with it is completely disingenuous.
It’s not clear from the comment above what ‘it’ is referring to. As I pointed out previously, the ‘it’ in this case relates to a claimed ‘misleading’ comment.
Brendan,
I would not be skeptical about Mann or his motives, except for the fact that he has shown himself to be a disingenuous self-promoter when it seves him, but he runs and hides out when it doesn’t. If this paper helped Mann, he would be the very first to claim ownership of it [whether true or not; witness his claim that he was awarded the Nobel Prize].
Character is destiny. Mann’s character is catching up with him.