Guest opinion by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
This memorandum sets out evidence of falsehood with intent to mislead a court by Dr Michael E. Mann in a case in the District of Columbia against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review.
First, it will be demonstrated that Dr Michael Mann, the plaintiff and appellee in the case, materially misled the court in his Brief of Appellee filed 3 September 2014 by falsely stating (1) that the finding of Sir Muir Russell in an inquiry into revelations of malpractice by climate scientists in the “Climategate emails” that a depiction of three graphs of northern-hemisphere temperature changes from 1000-2000 AD, reconstructed from tree-rings and published on the front cover of the World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999 on the WMO’s 50th anniversary in 2000, was misleading “had absolutely nothing to do with Dr Mann or with any graph prepared by him”; and (2) that “Dr Mann did not create this depiction”.
Second, it will be demonstrated that Dr Mann had reason to know each of these two statements was false in every material particular and was calculated to mislead the court on issues central to the proceedings.
Third, it will be demonstrated that a graph by Dr Mann and a depiction by him and others of his graph together with two similar graphs on the front cover of a widely-circulated official publication gravely misrepresented the scientific data so as to mislead policymakers into the adoption of costly regimes of taxation and regulation calculated to occasion substantial losses to taxpayers, and that Dr Mann knew the depiction was misleading, and that he was given an opportunity to correct it but did not correct it.
In particular, the following facts will be established by documentary evidence herein or annexed hereto –
That Dr Mann’s own curriculum vitae lists him as having co-authored and thus, in accordance with academic norms, as having accepted full personal responsibility for the depiction on the front cover of the WMO’s publication with which in his brief to the court he denies all connection.
That Dr Mann had himself created one of the three graphs constituting the depiction characterized as misleading by Sir Muir Russell, a depiction with which Dr Mann denies all connection.
That on the front cover of the WMO’s publication Dr Mann is named as his graph’s originator and that on page 2 he is named as a co-author of the depiction that incorporates his graph and two others.
That Dr Mann had discussed with his co-authors the problem posed by the discrepancy between measured warming in the mid-20th century and the sharp decline in temperature as reconstructed from tree-ring data series over the same period, yet they had concealed the discrepancy by tampering with one of the datasets falsely to substitute the sharp decline with a sharp increase, and by splicing measured temperature data on to the end of all three graphs without disclosing that they had done so.
That in accordance with academic practice Dr Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who had prepared the depiction incorporating Dr Mann’s graph, had given Dr Mann and each of his co-authors the opportunity to comment on their depiction before Dr Jones submitted it to the WMO for publication on behalf of himself and his co-authors, including Dr Mann.
That the depiction falsely represented all three graphs of reconstructed northern-hemisphere temperature changes over the past millennium as showing global temperatures increasing steeply from 1960-2000 in line with instrumentally-measured global temperature change in a fashion calculated to leave the reader with the false impression that dendrochronology is a reliable basis for pre-instrumental temperature reconstructions, when in fact two of the graphs had shown little change in the mid-20th century and one had shown temperatures declining steeply over a period when temperatures had in fact risen appreciably, demonstrating the unreliability of the tree-ring reconstructions on which Dr Mann and his co-authors had relied in constructing their depiction intended to diminish or abolish the medieval warm period and hence artificially to make it appear that today’s temperatures are exceptional.
That the tree-ring graphs were inadequate as a basis for reconstructing pre-instrumental temperatures, so that Dr Mann’s graph was misleading even before it was tampered with; that the suppression of the medieval warm period in his graph was an artefact of a non-standard and defective algorithm contrived by him and of the inclusion of estimated data from a single cedar-tree; and that Dr Mann knew but concealed the fact that that his graph’s apparent ability to emulate the measured increase in 20th-century northern-hemisphere temperature depended solely upon 20 defective tree-ring datasets.
EVIDENCE THAT DR MANN, CONTRARY TO A STATEMENT BY HIM TO THE COURT,
CO-AUTHORED THE WMO DEPICTION AND CONTRIBUTED A GRAPH THERETO
Dr Mann’s false statements were uttered in the following passage at p. 13 of his appellate brief of 3 September 2013, annexed hereto and marked “M 1”:
“[In July 2010,] … the University of East Anglia published the Independent Climate Change Email Review report, prepared under the oversight of Sir Muir Russell. The report examined whether manipulation or suppression of data occurred and concluded that the CRU scientists’ ‘rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt’. In their briefs, 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. … 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 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. Dr. Mann did not create this depiction, and to state that this report suggested an effort by Dr. Mann to mislead is disingenuous.”
Page 22 of Dr Mann’s own curriculum vitae, downloaded from Penn State University at http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/cv/cv_pdf.pdf on 12 September 2014, and annexed hereto and marked “M 2”, explicitly lists Dr Mann as a co-author of that graph, as follows (the emphasis is in the original document):
“Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Osborn, T.J., Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Cover Figure for World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 50th Year Anniversary Publication: Temperature changes over the last Millennium, 2000.”
There was no WMO document entitled Temperature changes over the last Millennium. Nor was Dr Jones’ depiction, containing a graph by Dr Mann together with two other graphs and approved by Dr Mann and his listed co-authors for publication at the instance of Dr Jones, entitled Temperature changes over the last Millennium.
The WMO document referred to by Dr Mann in his curriculum vitae was its Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999, published in 2000 on its 50th anniversary. It is annexed hereto and marked “M 3”. The “Cover Figure” was incorrectly titled in Dr Mann’s curriculum vitae. It was in fact the cover figure for the WMO document, of which Fig. 1 is a true image.
Nor did either Dr Mann’s graph or the depiction as a whole represent reconstructions of global temperature changes over the last millennium, though the depiction including Dr Mann’s graph appeared on the front cover of the WMO document under a prominent title referring to the global climate. The depiction represented temperature changes for the Northern Hemisphere only.
Nevertheless, it will be demonstrated that the above-cited reference in Dr Mann’s curriculum vitae is indeed the depiction on the front cover of the WMO document; that Dr Mann contributed a graph to that depiction; that he was a co-author of that depiction and was listed as such in the WMO document; that, therefore, Sir Muir Russell’s criticism of the depiction as “misleading” was as much applicable to Dr Mann as to all other co-authors of that depiction; and that, contrary to Dr Mann’s assertion in his Appellee’s Brief, the defendants and appellants in these proceedings were fully entitled to mention his name in their pleadings in connection with what will be demonstrated to be the intentionally misleading defects in that depiction.
Figure 1. Three reconstructions of mean northern-hemisphere mean surface temperature changes deduced from tree-rings, AD 1000-2000, shown on the front cover of Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999 [World Meteorological Organization, 2000]. Image downloaded from https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/913_en.pdf 13 September 2014.
It is not until page 2 of the WMO document that it is made clear that the depiction in the front cover is not a depiction of global temperature changes but relates to the Northern Hemisphere only:
“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).”
The six names P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes are, in sequence, the six names listed in Dr Mann’s curriculum vitae as the co-authors of the front cover image of the World Meteorological Organization’s 2000 publication to which he gives the false title Temperature changes over the last Millennium.
It is a convention in academe that all those who agree to be listed as co-authors of a scientific paper, or of any depiction therein, assent not only to their own contributions thereto but to the paper or image as a whole – in the present instance, to the depiction on the front cover of the WMO document.
Further evidence that Dr Mann was specifically invited to approve the depiction before it was sent to the WMO for incorporation into the document and publication is given in one of the “Climategate” emails between various scientists including Dr Mann, who, in 1999, was at the University of Virginia.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, from whose servers the Climate emails became publicly available in 2009, has confirmed to me in person that the “Climategate” emails are – save for certain redactions apparently intended to conceal the full telephone numbers and email addresses of persons mentioned therein, or to withhold information that was purely personal – true and accurate.
The email in question, from Dr Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was downloaded from http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0191.txt 13 September 2014. Redactions indicated by triple interrogation marks were made by those who released the emails to the public.
In the email, Dr Jones copied to Dr Mann and other co-authors the depiction he had prepared incorporating the graphs from Dr Mann and from two other sources, and invited them qua co-authors to comment in accordance with standard academic practice so that he could send the final version to the WMO for publication:
“date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:20:35 +000 ???
“from: Phil Jones ???@uea.ac.uk
“subject: WMO Climate Statement for 1999 – IMPORTANT!
“to: ray Bradley >???@geo.umass.edu>, ???@virginia.edu, ???@ltrr.arizona.edu
“cc: ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@uea.ac.uk
“Dear Ray, Mike [Mann] and Malcolm,
“On the Friday last week, whilst most were still in Venice, I was in Geneva attending the last day of the WG [Working Group] on Climate Change Detection of WMO/CCL and CLIVAR. All the proxy [proxies are measured data, e.g. from tree-rings, from which attempts are made to reconstruct pre-thermometer temperature records] items on the agenda were left for me to deal with and it was certainly worth going. Keith [Briffa, author of one of the three tree-ring reconstructions of Northern-Hemisphere temperature that appeared in the depiction on the front cover of the WMO document] has given me a brief rundown on what happened in Venice on Thursday pm and Friday.
“The pertinent item from Geneva concerns the WMO statement on the Climate of 1999. WMO has been issuing these for the past 6 years. There are 10,000 printed each time. There were two possibilities for the front cover (1998’s showed the instrumental record from 1856) – the millennial long temperature series or the contrasting storm tracks for 1998 and 1999. I was the only one voting for the latter – partly personal as I knew I would have to organise the former. I was outvoted 12-1, maybe because in a brief presentation I oversold the advances made in paleoclimate studies over the last few years!
“That’s the background. WMO want to go with the millennial record on the cover and I said I would produce something and some text. The figure will be the 3 curves (Mike’s, mine amd [and] Keith/Tim’s). Tim is producing this curve (all wrt [with respect to 19]61-90 and 50 year smoothed). Each will be extended to 1999 by instrumental data for the zones/seasons they represent. The attached text briefly discusses the differences and what is shown. The text is attached as a word file. It is probably a little too long and is, as you’ll see, very brief. If you want anything changed/added then delete something.
“Can I have your feedback asap as I have to get the text and the diagram to Geneva by Nov 29?
“There will be a press release in Geneva on Dec 16 – 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. WMO are planning to print at least twice as many copies as usual and were talking about 25,000! Copies go to all WMO members and are distributed at countless meetings and sent to loads of address lists available.
“I hope you’ll all be willing to go along with this and can live with the brief text. All the previous issues have been referenceless – I’m trying to circumvent this with the web page addresses for more info.
“Cheers
“Phil
“PS I hope you can all cope with the word97 format.
“Attachment Converted: ‘c:\eudora\attach\wmocover.doc’
“Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 ???
“School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 ???
“University of East Anglia Email ???@uea.ac.uk
“Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK”
In 2001, the year following publication of the WMO’s document, the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reproduced a very similar graph of reconstructed northern-hemisphere temperatures (Fig. 2), purporting to show that there had been little or no medieval warm period and that in the 20th century, inferentially owing to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as by-products of the combustion of coal, oil and gas, there had been a sharp warming of the atmosphere unprecedented in at least the previous 1000 years. IPCC reproduced the graph six times in large scale and in full color, the only graph to be thus favored.
IPCC’s 2001 graph, which bears many similarities to Dr Mann’s graph shown in the depiction in the WMO’s document of 1999, was also by Dr Mann together with Drs Bradley and Hughes, who had also been his co-authors of the earlier graph. The 2001 graph had originally been published in Nature in 1998 and again in 1999 under the names of these three authors. For a few years the IPCC adopted a simplified representation of the graph as part of its brand image.
IPCC’s 2001 graph became known as the “hockey stick” graph because the startling uptick in Northern-Hemisphere temperatures that it portrayed bore a superficial resemblance to the blade of a hockey-stick. From 2005 onward, after Mr Steve McIntyre and Professor Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada, exposed Dr Mann’s 2001 graph as methodologically defective and, after it became apparent that the graph was inconsistent with the overwhelming majority of proxy temperature reconstructions from all over the Northern Hemisphere, IPCC found it expedient to cease using a version of the “hockey stick” graph as part of its brand image.
Figure 2. Millennial Northern-Hemisphere temperature reconstruction (blue) and instrumental data (red) from AD 1000 to 1999, adapted from Mann et al. (1999). A smoother version of the Northern-Hemisphere series (black), the linear trend from 1000-1850 AD (purple-dashed) and two standard error limits (grey shaded) are also shown. Source: IPCC (2001).
The Independent Climate Change Emails Review, conducted by Sir Muir Russell on behalf of the University of East Anglia and published in July 2010, downloaded on 11 September 2014 from http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf, annexed hereto and marked “M 4”. concluded at §23 on p. 13 as follows:
“On the allegation that the references in a specific e-mail to a “trick” and to “hide the decline” in respect of a 1999 WMO report figure show evidence of intent to paint a misleading picture, we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading. We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.”
Sir Muir Russell was plainly characterizing as misleading the depiction in the WMO’s document – a depiction of which Dr Mann, contrary to his assertion in his Appellee’s Brief, was a co-creator and co-author, and to which, contrary to his assertion, he had contributed a graph. The fact that Sir Muir Russell was indeed referring to the WMO’s 1999 Statement on the Status of the Global Climate, and could not have been referring to any other WMO document, will become apparent once the significance of the terms “trick” and “hide the decline” are explained later herein.
EVIDENCE OF DR MANN’S KNOWLEDGE OF AND PARTICIPATION IN THE UNDISCLOSED ALTERATION OF THE WMO DEPICTION
On 22 September 1999, Dr Mann wrote the following email to Dr Keith Briffa, deputy director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, in which he addresses – and hence demonstrates that he is fully aware of – the discrepancy between the measured rise in 20th-century temperature and the decline in mid-century shown by Dr Briffa’s tree-ring reconstruction:
“From: ‘Michael E. Mann’ ???@multiproxy.evsc.virginia.edu
“To: Keith Briffa ???@uea.ac.uk,
‘Folland, Chris’ ???@uea.ac.uk, ‘Phil Jones’ ???@uea.ac.uk
“Subject: RE: IPCC revisions
“Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 12:35:24 -0400
“Cc: ???@ncdc.noaa.gov, ???@virginia.edu
“Thanks for your response Keith,
“For all: Walked into this hornet’s nest this morning! Keith and Phil have both raised some very good points. And I should point out that Chris, through no fault of his own, but probably through ME not conveying my thoughts very clearly to the others, definitely overstates any singular confidence I have in my own (Mann et al.) series. I believe strongly that the strength in our discussion will be the fact that certain key features of past climate estimates are robust among a number of quasi-independent and truly independent estimates, each of which is not without its own limitations and potential biases. And I certainly don’t want to abuse my lead authorship by advocating my own work.
“I am perfectly amenable to keeping Keith’s series in the plot, and can ask Ian Macadam (Chris?) to add it to the plot he has been preparing (nobody liked my own color/plotting conventions so I’ve given up doing this myself). The key thing is making sure the series are vertically aligned in a reasonable way. I had been using the entire 20th century, but in the case of Keith’s, we need to align the first half of the 20th century w/ the corresponding mean values of the other series, due to the late 20th century decline. [emphasis added].
“So if Chris and Tom (?) are ok with this, I would be happy to add Keith’s series. That having been said, it does raise a conundrum: We demonstrate (through comparining an exatropical averaging of our nothern hemisphere patterns with Phil’s more extratropical series) that the major discrepancies between Phil’s and our series can be explained in terms of spatial sampling/latitudinal emphasis (seasonality seems to be secondary here, but probably explains much of the residual differences). But that explanation certainly can’t rectify why Keith’s series, which has similar seasonality *and* latitudinal emphasis to Phil’s series, differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction than Phil’s does from ours. This is the problem all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably concensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series.
“So, if we show Keith’s series in this plot, we have to comment that ‘something else’ is responsible for the discrepancies in this case. Perhaps Keith can help us out a bit by explaining the processing that went into the series and the potential factors that might lead to it being ‘warming’ than the Jones et al and Mann et al series?? We would need to put in a few words in this regard. Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates. I don’t think that doubt is scientifically justified, and I’d hate to be the one to have to give it fodder! …”
On November 16, 1999, Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, sent an email containing the following statement to Drs Mann, Bradley, and Hughes, the three co-authors of the “hockey stick” graph, as follows:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
The “real temps” referred to in Dr Mann’s email are modern-era surface temperatures measured by thermometers. “Keith” is Keith Briffa, Jones’ deputy director at the Climatic Research Unit.
Figure 3. Left panel: The raw, unaltered data for the three tree-ring graphs, compared with observed temperature trends (in black). Right panel: the depiction of the three graphs published in the WMO’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999. All three graphs of reconstructed northern-hemisphere temperatures were tampered with to make it appear, falsely, that the tree-rings faithfully reproduced the measured global warming of the 20th century, when in fact none of the three graphs showed rapid warming after 1960 and the third showed a decline that was the opposite of the measured temperature trend. It was this “decline” that the depiction hid.
EVIDENCE OF DEFECTS IN THE CONTRIVING OF THE “HOCKEY-STICK” GRAPH
Professor Ross McKitrick, co-author of the papers in the learned journals Geophysical Research Letters and Energy and Environment that exposed the defects in the “hockey stick” graph, wrote in a brief for the Australia Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Study Centre at Monash University, Melbourne, delivered at Parliament House, Canberra in 2005, annexed hereto and marked “M 5”:
“Scientists try to discern local climate histories over past centuries using various techniques, including temperature proxies and ground borehole temperature data. ‘Proxies’ include a wide range of measures that are, potentially, sensitive to local temperature trends, such as tree ring widths. Boreholes drilled into the ground have a vertical temperature profile that can be inverted to yield an estimate of the historical surface temperature sequence at the surface.
“In the mid-1990s the use of ground boreholes as a clue to paleoclimate history was becoming well-established. In 1995 David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, published a study in Science that demonstrated the technique by generating a 150-year climate history for North America. Here, in his own words, is what happened next.
“ ‘With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.’
“The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is an interval from approximately AD 1000 to AD 1300 during which many places around the world exhibited conditions that seem warm compared to today. In the 1995 Second Assessment Report of the IPCC [actually the 1990 First Assessment Report], there was no hockey stick. Instead the millennial climate history contained a MWP and a subsequent Little Ice Age … The late 20th century appears to be nothing special by comparison.”
“It is easy to see why this graph was a problem for those pushing the global warming alarm. If the world could warm so much on such a short time scale as a result of natural causes, surely the 20th century climate change could simply be a natural effect as well. And the present climate change could hardly be considered unusually hazardous if even larger climate changes happened in the recent past, and we are simply fluctuating in the middle of what nature regularly dishes out?”
IPCC’s graph from the first of its five quinquennial Assessment Reports, published in 1990 and showing the medieval warm period, is reproduced and colorized as the lower panel in Fig. 3. The upper panel is a reconstruction of sea level by Grinsted et al. (2009), largely based on Jevrejeva et al. (2007). The correlation between the graphs of temperature change and sea-level change over the past millennium is self-evident.
IPCC maintains that changes in global temperature are reflected in changes in global sea level. The correlation between reconstructed sea-level change and the reconstructed surface temperatures as shown in IPCC’s 1990 graph accordingly suggests that it is that graph and not the IPCC’s 2001 graph based on Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” reconstruction that was correct as to the existence of the medieval warm period and of the little ice age, and as to the position of today’s temperatures approximately halfway between the two extremes. This inferentially causative correlation is one of the simplest and clearest methods of demonstrating that the medieval warm period is likely to have been warmer and the little ice age cooler than the present: for, in the absence of temperature change as presented in IPCC’s 1990 graph, no other explanation for the changes in sea level shown in Grinsted et al. (2009) is known.
It is also evident from the sea-level reconstruction that, notwithstanding the changes in temperature over the past millennium, sea level has varied by only 20 cm (8 in) either side of the millennial mean.
A list of some 450 papers in the reviewed scientific literature most of which provide evidence by a variety of proxy methods of temperature reconstruction that the medieval warm period was almost everywhere warmer than the present is annexed hereto and marked “M 6”.
A far smaller number of papers supporting Dr Mann’s contention that there was little or no medieval warm period and that today’s temperatures are unprecedented in a millennium appeared rather suddenly after McIntyre and McKitrick had exposed Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph as defective.
However, these papers were nearly all based not so much on direct observation as on modeling, and, as a report by three statisticians for the U.S. House of Representatives revealed in 2006, the overwhelming majority of these papers’ authors were closely linked to Dr Mann by previous co-authorship.
Figure 4. Upper panel: Reconstruction of sea-level changes, 1000-2000 AD, from Grinsted et al. (2009). Lower panel: Colorized representation of reconstructed temperature changes, 1000-2000 AD, from IPCC (1990). The close correlation between the two graphs is self-evident.
Dr Mann and his colleagues had used the varying widths of tree-rings as their principal method of estimating early-climate temperatures. They had assumed that wider tree-rings always indicated warmer temperatures. However, one reason for caution about using tree-rings as proxies for pre-instrumental surface temperatures is that wider tree-rings do not always indicate warmer temperatures. Trees grow faster not only when it is warmer but also when there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally-occurring trace gas that, with sunlight, chlorophyll, and water, is an essential ingredient in plant photosynthesis, without which there would be little or no life on Earth.
Seen in a geological perspective, the pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide is almost as low as it has been in the past half-billion years (Fig. 4). Indeed, even the present concentration is well below what has been the norm in recent geological history. In the Cambrian era, for instance, a diagram in the IPCC’s 2001 assessment report shows that carbon dioxide concentration was almost 20 times that of today.
It is also known that in the Neoproterozoic era 750 million years ago the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at least 30%, compared with just 0.04% today (for otherwise the dolomitic limestones that precipitated out of the oceans in that era could not have formed). Yet during that era equatorial glaciers came and went twice at sea level.
Figure 5. Reconstructed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (Berner, 2001) and global mean surface temperature (Scotese, 1999) over the past 550 million years.
In the past 400,000 years, the correlation between changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and in global mean surface temperature inferred from ice-core data has been closer than shown in Fig. 4. However, many papers in the learned journals attest to the fact that in the paleoclimate it was temperatures that changed first. Carbon dioxide did not lead: it followed.
As the discrepancy between the rise in global temperatures over the 20th century and the decline shown in the true tree-ring data from the three series falsely depicted in the WMO document demonstrates, tree-rings are unsuitable as a method of reconstructing past temperatures because CO2 fertilization distorts the data.
McIntyre and McKitrick identified numerous other defects in the construction of IPCC’s 2001 version of “hockey-stick” 1000-year temperature graph by Dr Mann and his colleagues:
Ø Many location labels were incorrect.
Ø Obsolete versions of the data were used.
Ø Available data series were inexplicably truncated.
Ø The data actually used by Dr Mann in the compilation of the “hockey stick” graph differed in important ways from the description of the data set out in Dr Mann’s original paper in Nature.
Ø Dr Mann, contrary to the crucial principle of replicability of scientific results, refused all requests by McIntyre and McKitrick for a copy of the computer code he had used in generating his “hockey stick” graph. Nature, in which Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph had first been published in 1998, also flatly refused to require Dr Mann to part with details of the data and methods used by the scientists who had created the defective graph it had published. These refusals run directly counter to the central principle of the scientific method, which is that the unpublished methods and data that underlie the published results of any scientist in any learned journal must be made available to other scientists so that they can replicate the methods and test whether the results are valid. Honoring this principle of replicability is of particular importance where scientists such as Dr Mann are lobbying and campaigning for costly regulations and taxes on the basis of their published research conclusions.
Ø Some fragments of Dr Mann’s computer code retrieved by McIntyre and McKitrick showed that Dr Mann had used a defective technique that had had the effect of giving 390 times as much weighting to the small minority of tree-ring data series that showed an uptick in temperature in the 20th century than to the great majority that showed no uptick (Fig. 5).
Figure 6. The few datasets such as the bristlecone-pine tree-ring series from Sheep Mountain, CA (upper panel), that produced a “hockey-stick” shape, falsely suggesting an unprecedented uptrend in the 20th century, were given 390 times more weight in Dr Mann’s “hockey-stick” graph than tree-rings from Mayberry Slough, AZ (lower panel), that did not exhibit a “hockey-stick” shape.
Ø Dr Mann had spliced together a number of different data series in order to handle segments with missing data in the earliest period of the analysis, but had not disclosed in his Nature article that he had thus tampered with the data.
Ø Dr Mann refused requests to supply the splicing sequence he had used, yet again offending against the principle of replicability of scientific results.
Ø The non-standard algorithm used by Dr Mann to construct the “hockey-stick” graph generated “hockey stick” curves showing a pronounced uptick at the end of the “time”-series even if the real-world proxy data from tree-rings and other sources were replaced with trendless red noise, a type of random data that simulates the data from trees in a climate that is only subject to random fluctuations with no warming trend.
Ø In 10,000 repetitions on random trendless red noise, McIntyre and McKitrick found that a conventional algorithm almost never yielded a hockey stick shaped output, but Dr Mann’s algorithm yielded a pronounced hockey-stick shape more than 99% of the time (Fig. 7).
Figure 7. Seven runs of Dr Mann’s algorithm (a-g) using untrended random red noise, and a single run (MBH) using Dr Mann’s tree-ring data. Dr Mann’s algorithm generates “hockey stick” curves more than 99% of the time, even if untrended random data are input to it.
Ø The journal Nature, in which the defective “hockey-stick” graph had been first published, required Dr Mann and his co-authors to publish a Corrigendum amending the defective list of data series they had used in compiling the graph and explaining that the statistical method they had used had not been the standard method. However, they falsely stated that “none of these errors affect our previously published results”.
Ø Owing to the propensity of Dr Mann’s algorithm to generate “hockey sticks” falsely making the 20th-century warming appear exceptional, removal of just 20 “Graybill-Idso” bristlecone-pine data series from Dr Mann’s data removed the “hockey stick” from his graph (Fig. 8).
Figure 8. Top panel downward: 1. Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph, first published in Nature in 1998, then reproduced in IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001: see Fig. 2 supra). 2. Simple mean of all Dr Mann’s proxies, showing that without his algorithm the “hockey stick” shape vanishes. 3. Mean of all Dr Mann’s proxies adjusted to exclude short-segment standardization. 4. Dr Mann’s own graph after he had removed the 20 defective “Graybill-Idso” tree-ring proxies. He concealed this result showing that the abolition of the medieval warm period he had contrived in his “hockey stick” graph depended on the presence of just 20 defective tree-ring data series, hiding the data for the bottom panel in a folder marked CENSORED_DATA at Dr Mann’s file-transfer protocol site.
Ø Dr Mann had himself done an experiment to remove the 20 Graybill-Idso bristlecone-pine datasets, and had discovered that the “hockey stick” shape creating the 20th-century data peak disappeared without them (Fig. 8): in short, that the “hockey stick” shape depended entirely on just 20 of several hundred data series that are not considered by experts to be valid climate indicators. However, Dr Mann did not disclose what Professor McKitrick describes as “this fatal weakness of his results”, which only came to light because Professor McKitrick’s co-author, Steve McIntyre, had persisted until he discovered the error.
Ø Some data series were duplicated within the database, doubling the weight assigned to them compared with all others. One of these, the Gaspe “northern treeline” data series, is included both as treeline #11 and as part of the North American collection, where it is labeled “cana036”.
Ø The Gaspe chronology is based upon only one tree from 1404 to 1450. Dr Mann, however, listed the start date as 1400 and filled in the missing data by extrapolation. Simply removing that one incorrectly-padded period had a substantial effect on the final graph (Fig. 9).
Figure 9. Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph (dashed curve) falsely abolishing the medieval warm period, and the true graph (solid line) generated after removing extrapolated data related to the single Gaspe cedar tree. After removal of those estimated data for that one tree, Dr Mann’s algorithm based on all remaining data shows the medieval warm period, demonstrating that there is nothing remarkable about today’s temperatures.
Ø On the basis that meaningless red noise could yield “hockey stick” curves when Dr Mann’s algorithm was applied to them, McIntyre and McKitrick generated a Monte Carlo benchmark for statistical significance: for a model fitted using random numbers allows study of how well they appear to “explain” the data. Then the “real-world” data, if they are informative about the climate, have to outperform the random numbers. McIntyre and McKitrick calculated statistical significance benchmarks for the hockey-stick algorithm and showed that in the medieval warm period, before 1450, the “hockey stick” did not achieve statistical significance. Dr Mann’s graph, therefore, presents results that tell us no more about the temperature record of the past millennium than random numbers.
Ø Dr Mann and his co-authors, in a paper in Nature in 1999, acknowledged that the bristlecone-pine temperature reconstruction data series they had used were flawed and required an adjustment to remove the CO2 fertilization effect (more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accelerates tree growth, just as higher rainfall and higher temperature do). However, they only applied the necessary correction to the pre-1400 segment of the series. When the necessary corrections were applied to the full series length, the “hockey stick” shape disappeared.
For these reasons, the “hockey stick” graph was not fit for its purpose. In particular, Dr Mann’s apparent suppression of the medieval warm period whose existence and magnitude in relation to subsequent temperature change IPCC had acknowledged in its 1990 First Assessment Report was an artefact of the inclusion in the data of just 50 years’ invented data in respect of a single cedar tree for which no real data were available at the relevant period; and its apparent ability to track the increase in measured northern-hemisphere temperature in the 20th century was an artefact of the inclusion of just 20 tree-ring datasets known to be defective. Furthermore, Dr Mann knew that his algorithm was unreliable, for he had run an experiment omitting the 20 defective data series and had generated a graph showing no 20th-century uptick, thus revealing that tree-ring reconstructions are unsound as a basis for determining pre-instrumental temperatures. But he had sought to conceal the ineffectiveness of his algorithm by hiding the data for that graph in a file marked “CENSORED_DATA”.
The false suppression of the medieval warm period by Dr Mann, and his false concealment of the fact that the 20th-century uptick in temperatures shown in his “hockey-stick” graph was an artefact of the inclusion of 20 dubious tree-ring proxies, provide a necessary background to understanding why Dr Mann’s mendacious attempts to dissociate himself from Sir Muir Russell’s finding and from the depiction in the WMO’s 1999 report of which he was a co-author and to deny that any of the graphs in that depiction was his were calculated to mislead the court. Dr Mann’s deception at the expense of the defendants and appellants in the case, a deception perpetrated in a brief lodged in court proceedings, was calculated to enable him to achieve a gain in money value for himself and inflict a corresponding loss upon the defendants and appellants. The question whether Dr Mann has committed fraud, perjury, and contempt of court should be investigated by the prosecuting authorities.
The following documentary evidence of the offenses alleged herein is attached:
M 1 Appellate brief by Dr Mann dated 3 September 2014 and filed with the DC Court of Appeals
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/OPPOSSING%20APPELLATE%20BRIEF%20Mann.pdf
M 2 Dr Mann’s Curriculum Vitae
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/cv/cv_pdf.pdf
M 3 World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999
https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/913_en.pdf
M 4 Sir Muir Russell’s Independent Climate Change Emails Review
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
M 5 Professor Ross McKitrick’s report What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ debate about?
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/APEC-hockey.pdf
M 6 List of ~450 papers most of which demonstrate that the medieval warm period was real.
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It would be nice to see Steve McIntyre’s take on this post. Something to the effect of, “Yo, what he said!” Or not.
More like “Yo, what I said”. Steve McIntyre ran a very good series a couple of months ago on this very subject.
Here is the link to McIntyre’s post which covers the WMO graph very well. http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/10/another-porky-from-mann-williams-and-fontaine/
Con Mann lies to cover up previous lies.
We’ll just call him “Michael Gruber Mann” from now on. How fitting!
Are you saying that the hockey stick was a production from the “MGM” special-effects department?
Or otherwise, he needs a “boot to the head”.
I thought boot to the head was Fred Gruber Mann?
Michael Gruber Porky Mann
@William Howard Mason
Close, it was Ed.
you need to pass this on to Mark Steyn……his case goes to oral arguments on November 25th.
Finally! No doubt live coverage on PBS or CSPAN.
Steyn’s on this and was on it before this. But the 25th is an appeal in which he’s only an amicus. Steyn abandoned the appeal process opting for Mann to produce in discovery and to appear on the witness stand. I doubt that or an ice free Arctic will take place by next summer. Mann’s game is to outlast Steyn’s money with the help of a few million of someone else’s dollars..
I’m quite sure Steyn is not floating his legal cause all on his own dime, nor should he need to. Where may I contribute?
He has a creative, small donation legal defense fund:
http://www.steynonline.com/6048/give-the-gift-of-steyn
And buying his books helps.
Me to Brian…indeed where may we contribute but I suspect Steyn is solvent enough to handle this “attack”. But if not…
As a general rule, if I want to help someone financially, I give them the money directly. If you buy the book without having a real interest in the book, you substantially decrease the amount he gets for his defense.
If you aren’t paying an attorney, you can last pretty much through a whole case. In Mann’s case, he may have a problem with his financiers as the truth is laid out in very clear detail. If they bail on him, he’s in some deep trouble as Steyn isn’t going to let him go. Karma may get the last word.
[Fake emaill address. ~mod.]
The caption on the graph, from a paper by Professor Ross McKitrick, reads as follows: “Dashed line: MBH98 proxy-based Northern Hemisphere temperature index reconstruction. Solid line: Series resulting from using corrected PCs (retaining 5 PCs in the North America network), removing Gaspé extrapolation and applying CO2 fertilization adjustment to full length of bristlecone pine series.”
As a luke-warmer myself, I wish that people who made snide comments had bothered to check their facts first, and had the guts to publish their snideries under their own names. Saying, “No doubt many other aspects” of the head posting are “equally inaccurate” is a lazy ad-hom. The policy of this site is to ban trolls who sneer from behind pseudonyms. If “None” is unwilling to say who it is and post under its own name, the moderators will ban it.
Fair play your lordship.
[Fake emaill address. ~mod.]
Very well said, but using None as a title should give away the quality of this nonsensical response.
[Fake email address. ~mod.]
“The policy of this site is to ban trolls who sneer from behind pseudonyms. If “None” is unwilling to say who it is and post under its own name, the moderators will ban it.”
No, last thing I heard, the site policy was to prefer legal “real” names, it is not obligatory.
Trolling may lead to bans if persistent, irrespective of the name used.
You have just confirmed “None’s” main point of your being prepared to distort facts to make your argument.
Though I happen to largely agree with you about global warming and appreciate the way you harangue the bureaucrats, I too do not appreciate this kind of tactic.
[Reply: Screen names will get posted. But site Policy requires a legitimate email address. Almost everyone complies, with very few exceptions. ~ mod.]
Greg Goodman
Trolls can now also be subject of a criminal case in some countries. Perhaps you know who ‘none’ is ??
Hm, sorry mistyped my email address earlier… have corrected it. Would appreciate if you would reinstate the original comments, since the points made were valid. ie that Monckton’s graph 9 caption is misleading and incorrect. Surprised at the heavy handed moderation. Monckton’s climate science like carelessness clearly carries with it their hyper sensitivity to criticism.
[David: Your email address is not legitimate. Tried it on two different verifiers. Please use a good email address. ~ mod.]
David Goodman: You have just confirmed “None’s” main point of your being prepared to distort facts to make your argument.
Could you please supply the details where was Christopher Monckton wrong, and where was he shown to be wrong?
‘Could you please supply the details where was Christopher Monckton wrong, and where was he shown to be wrong?’
His figure 9, the caption on it, and the text under it (and the paragraph before it) states (or at the very least imply) the new graph is due to the removal of the extended portion of Gaspe.
That is incorrect. The difference is due to ALL of the following changes combined (according to subsequent comment by Monckton citing it from McKitrick, who had CORRECTLY listed the changes):
1) Not extending Gaspe
2) Correcting the PCA mechanism
3) Allowing for CO2 fertilisation
none,
Here is my post, to which you responded:
David Goodman: You have just confirmed “None’s” main point of your being prepared to distort facts to make your argument.
Could you please supply the details where was Christopher Monckton wrong, and where was he shown to be wrong?
this came before the figure
Ø Some data series were duplicated within the database, doubling the weight assigned to them compared with all others. One of these, the Gaspe “northern treeline” data series, is included both as treeline #11 and as part of the North American collection, where it is labeled “cana036”.
Ø The Gaspe chronology is based upon only one tree from 1404 to 1450. Dr Mann, however, listed the start date as 1400 and filled in the missing data by extrapolation. Simply removing that one incorrectly-padded period had a substantial effect on the final graph (Fig. 9).
this came after the figure
Figure 9. Dr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph (dashed curve) falsely abolishing the medieval warm period, and the true graph (solid line) generated after removing extrapolated data related to the single Gaspe cedar tree. After removal of those estimated data for that one tree, Dr Mann’s algorithm based on all remaining data shows the medieval warm period, demonstrating that there is nothing remarkable about today’s temperatures.
Ø On the basis that meaningless red noise could yield “hockey stick” curves when Dr Mann’s algorithm was applied to them, McIntyre and McKitrick generated a Monte Carlo benchmark for statistical significance: for a model fitted using random numbers allows study of how well they appear to “explain” the data. Then the “real-world” data, if they are informative about the climate, have to outperform the random numbers. McIntyre and McKitrick calculated statistical significance benchmarks for the hockey-stick algorithm and showed that in the medieval warm period, before 1450, the “hockey stick” did not achieve statistical significance. Dr Mann’s graph, therefore, presents results that tell us no more about the temperature record of the past millennium than random numbers.
Ø Dr Mann and his co-authors, in a paper in Nature in 1999, acknowledged that the bristlecone-pine temperature reconstruction data series they had used were flawed and required an adjustment to remove the CO2 fertilization effect (more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accelerates tree growth, just as higher rainfall and higher temperature do). However, they only applied the necessary correction to the pre-1400 segment of the series. When the necessary corrections were applied to the full series length, the “hockey stick” shape disappeared.
I do not see where any “facts” have been distorted. Christopher Monckton did not imply that Gaspe was the only problem in figure 9. Perhaps if you could quote specific claims, and the specific evidence that the claim is a distortion of the facts. All I can see from the quoted text, and some of the unquoted text, is that you and he present the criticisms of Mann in different order.
Mathew,
“I do not see where any “facts” have been distorted. Christopher Monckton did not imply that Gaspe was the only problem in figure 9.”
When someone writes on a graph:
“The true graph using Dr Mann’s algorithm and data after removing the extrapolated data from 1404-1450 for a single cedar tree, the Gaspe cedar”
It very much does imply that Gaspe was the only difference between the two plots. Perhaps you read that text and somehow immediately know that there are also other changes included in the plot, but most mere mortals would not.
The same goes for the text directly before and directly after the graph. They, and only they, reference the graph. Neither of the references state that in actual fact the difference between the two plots are the combination of all three changes. The only thing they do reference is the Gaspe data early period exclusion.
Mathew
Another sloppy error is “The Gaspe chronology is based upon only one tree from 1404 to 1450”.
The core count rises to two, for the last 20 years or so (if I remember correctly).
none, when you misspell my name, and mistype your email address, I am not so sure that you even know what “sloppy with the facts” means.
More, on rereading your posts and Christopher Monckton’s essay and responses, I just do not see where you have shown him to be sloppy with the facts.
Matthew,
I apologise for spelling your name wrong, everyone makes mistakes, I try to acknowledge mine and correct them quickly. In my defence my screen and font are small, making the extra t easy to miss, on a name which is commonly spelt in an only slightly different way.
It is sloppy to say “The Gaspe chronology is based upon only one tree from 1404 to 1450” when in fact there were two cores by 1450 (and had been for several years).
It is sloppy to write on a graph that the difference between two plots is the removal of that one period of the Gaspe chronology when in actual fact the difference between the two plots is due to two other things in addition to the removal of Gaspe.
I have pointed out the sloppyness, it’s easily verifiable, and correctable but Monckton has moved on already. That is why I consider him sloppy and careless.
If you do not consider erroneous statements nor misleadingly labelled graphs sloppy and careless, that’s fine, neither does Mann.
Accusing Mr Monckton of being “careless with the facts” is quite bold for someone who does not use his real name, and then admits in his post that he is only “quite certain” of the main point he is trying to make. Then mr None goes on to claim “….many other aspects of his post are equally inaccurate.” But Mr None doesn’t provide any evidence whatsoever for this claim, and even if he did it would only prove that they were as inaccurate as a graph that Mr None is quite certain must be inaccurate. Mr None, how about providing a link to a graph that is accurate and shows the inaccuracies you claim exist in in Mr Moncton’s work.
Rather than being careless with facts, Mr None appears to lack any facts that he is willing to stand behind with certitude backed up with proof and his real name. Really sir this should boil down to put up or shut up.
I could put in any random name and you’d seemingly be happy with that. It should not matter who is posting, merely the truth or otherwise of what they are saying. I do not wish to leave a searchable trail of everything I decide to post across the internet, I think that is sensible. I do not mind if Tom Trevor is your real name or not, why should that matter ? I stated correctly that the figure 9 graph actually included results from the incorrect centering PCA methodology. Yet the label on the graph still says that the difference is due to the removal of “a single ceder tree”. It has still not been corrected, despite Monckton acknowledging McKitrick’s caption as “Series resulting from using corrected PCs (retaining 5 PCs in the North America network), removing Gaspé extrapolation and applying CO2 fertilization adjustment to full length of bristlecone pine series.” ie not only did it include the corrected PCA methodology but also a CO2 fertilization adjustment.
PS my email address was not “fake”, I merely mistyped it.
[This is just a moderator, following our long time protocol. Please use a legitimate email address, per site Policy. The one you are using is either fake or “mis-typed”. ~ mod.]
“I stated correctly that the figure 9 graph actually included results from the incorrect centering PCA methodology”
That should read:
I stated correctly that the figure 9 graph actually included results from correcting Mann’s incorrect PCA methodology.
I have just tested sending an email to the address (ie the corrected one I subsequently used (also the one I am using now) that is two characters shorter than the first eroneous one) from gmail and it worked fine. Not sure what an email verifier is, but in this case it’s giving you the wrong result. Why don’t you just try to send an email ?
[Reply: Message returned: xxxxxxxx@sdf.lonestar.org – Result: Bad. Maybe try another email address? Everyone has more than one. ~ mod.]
You make the following accusations about Monckton: (1)”As usual Monckton careless with the facts”, (2)”Have no doubt many other aspects of his post are equally inaccurate”, and (3)”he’s as careless with the facts as the climate scientists”. And when in recalling the “facts” you used phrases such as “Almost certain” and “if I remember correctly”. Perhaps you have not been taught better but when making accusations against another person, good manners and ethics demands that you be CERTAIN and SPECIFIC with the facts. If you say things like you are “almost certain” and “if I remember correctly” then why should other reading your post not see you as the one who is careless with the facts and you as being the one who is inaccurate. Do your homework first. Be certain. And then post your accusations. You post in its current state is the metaphorical fire, ready, aim..
It was impossible for me to know exactly what was on the graph as the source was uncited. Hence my use of qualifying statements. I knew enough Mann’s hockey stick to know that removing the Gaspe early period AND correcting his incorrect PCA methodology caused approx 0.2 deg escalation in early period. Hence the graph caption was incorrect, as is the statement directly above it:
“The Gaspe chronology is based upon only one tree from 1404 to 1450. Dr Mann, however, listed the start date as 1400 and filled in the missing data by extrapolation. Simply removing that one incorrectly-padded period had a substantial effect on the final graph (Fig. 9).”
Simply removing that one period did not result in the Fig. 9 graph, as Monckton’s text states. As Monckton subsequently replied, the graph comes from McKitrick, and according to McKitrick’s caption included:
1) Gaspe removal
2) Corrected PCA methodology
3) Adjustment for CO2 fertilisation.
However Monckton’s post is still uncorrected (and no admission of error given). This is the kind of inattention to accuracy that I find careless and disturbing. It’s all too often seen on the climate science side of the debate.
Just for clarity, by “Gaspe removal” I am of course talking about the early period removal, not it’s complete removal from the reconstruction.
[Please use a legitimate email address. ~ mod.]
My reply to John S has been removed by the moderator leaving only my clarification…
Seems sdf have changed their email setup, address no longer needs the lonestar part. Strange it goes through with gmail though, I assume your email verifier/client is doing something wrong
[OK, you’re good to go. ~mod.]
None’s comment stinks and makes me wonder if he’s a paid shill trolling the internet for truth poisonous to his employers money making efforts.
I shouldn’t have said ‘money making efforts’, it makes them sound too elitist. Double woops, it is: efforts for the betterment of the world.
You should take your own advice and cease being careless with the facts. Your comment on figure 9 is a specific instance of being careless, your other comments are gloriously fact free. Good for you.
Assuming the false email allegation is correct that would be a reason to ban someone. I don’t see the need to remove all comments. They were hardly that radical.
This looks very petty and is nothing short of censorship which is what we would expect from Unread Climate or from Cook and his Unskeptical Science kids.
I see my last comment got held back as well, so it looks like we have an over-zealous moderator
This site is going down hill rapidly if it gets into that game.
[Reply: That commenter is not being banned. But we have found that simply asking commenters to provide a legitimate email address is ineffective. Such a request is invariably ignored. But when their comment is deleted, they sit up straight and pay attention, and a real email address is provided if they want to comment. If a simple suggestion worked, we would do it that way. ~ mod.]
Greg
It will be a long time before this site reaches the base level of your friend(s) at Real Climate, I think.
[Snip. Another ‘beckleybud’ sockpuppet. ~mod.]
I’m having trouble understanding the problem. Every one of the blogs that I read requires an email address to reply to a post.
greg:
i simply detest anonymous nom de trolls… if one is unwilling to put one’s name on a post, I feel it doesn’t deserve to be put on this blog. sorry.
[Reply: That commenter is not being banned. But we have found that simply asking commenters to provide a legitimate email address is ineffective. Such a request is invariably ignored. But when their comment is deleted, they sit up straight and pay attention, and a real email address is provided if they want to comment. If a simple suggestion worked, we would do it that way. ~ mod.]
Thanks but that does not reply to my comment which was not just that “None” had been sniffped byt that my posts were being held back too. That starts to look like censorship of critical views.
My first post yesterday went straight up but I had the temerity to suggest that Monkton was over cooking his case and that this was detrimental and just made his accusations easier to dismiss.
All my posts since then have been held back for moderation and that is still the case today.
One person is a snip two starts to look like censorship.
Why are ALL my posts held back now. That is not accidental someone has taken moderation action which is blocking all my posts. My IP is also blocked since about 2 months ago. Anything I post without using a proxy just disappears totally.
If you are not censoring why are my posts held back?
Thanks. Greg Goodman
[because you have started to abuse the site policy, for example I had to snip a nasty portion of your comment in this thread in a reply to Moncktom. If you want your comments to flow unhindered, clean up your act and stop whining. Feel free to be upset as you wish, but commenting here is a privilege, not a right – Anthony]
[Complaint deleted. Posting here is a privelege. ~ cowardly mod.]
Apparently it is OK to say that sort of thing addressed at alarmists scientists or journalist but not the sacred Lord Monkton.
I had thought the problem came from some of the anonymous ( so according to your standards, cowardly ) moderators but since you have made it clear this bias is now officially site policy endorsed by the head honcho, It becomes clear that you have abandoned the impartiality that always made this site stand out in the climate debate.
If that is the “privilege” you are offering visitors to your site you have lost your way.
You are of course free to snip that criticism too, as you are now playing by RC and SkS rules.
Ah well, all good things come to an end and you have made a remarkable contribution to shining some light on the corruption of science and policy. For that I thank you heartily. The open debate was fun while lasted.
Best regards, Greg. Goodman.
[Note: Also, your email address is fake. Please use a legitimate email address. ~ mod.]
Could you by any chance be the eminent former “Talk Of The Town” columnist for The New Yorker?
They are usually absolute nobodies.
The irony of None’s nick-picking in other to accuse others of nick-picking…
I see None as picking nits and being sloppy and Greg Goodman looks to be his wingman.
“It is not until page 2 of the WMO document that it is made clear that the depiction in the front cover is not a depiction of global temperature changes but relates to the Northern Hemisphere only:”
Nefariously hidden away on page 2! Does their chicanery know no bounds!
It is usual when presenting a graph to say what the graph is either on the image itself or on the caption.
(And you are just a sockpuppet. G’bye, David. Your comments are all wasted effort now. ~mod)
If the graph doesn’t have a title it is not a graph – it is artistic license. I think the reference on page 2 is the error; the graph was not actually science. It was clearly fabricated by bad statistics – a computerised Pollock.
Claiming its just science fiction and not science is quite justifiable. It would also help illustrate the nature of AR3.
Actually it’s usual to put the credits and other information pertaining to the frontispiece or jacket cover inside, usually the first page or so. Exactly as was done in the WMO pamphlet.
Lord Monckton did not say it nefarious, You did, don’t put words in his mouth.
The title of the publication which is on the cover is “WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999.” So yes I would think that if there are charts on the cover that don’t relate to the global climate, it ought to be stated, on the cover, that they refer to something other than the [title] of the publication.
(And you are just a sockpuppet. G’bye, David. Your comments are all wasted effort. ~mod)
The standard for any scientific publication that presents some form of graphical material on the cover that is used within the publication is to credit the cover to the relevant paper, state which figure is shown (captions are more flexible), and to give the page where the source article begins or the specific page reference. The usually appears on the inside cover, or the back of the title page (for hardbound volumes). Mann is credited as a source of data, however, no individual is credited with the chart (the WMO is thus the “responsible” party. So, in this specific case, the WMO document really appears to have more or less complied with norms in scientific publication. The WMO document indicates that more can be found in the PAGES Newsletter 7(1) where a discussion of tree rings as thermometers appears, apparently authored by Keith Briffa. All in all, the WMO document and even the PAGES Newsletter appear to be more marketing than science. The apparent masking of authors by the WMO is charcteristic of large corporate operations where the work product tends to be the result of large numbers of workers, nominally too many to individually credit. Often the real reason is that many corporations do not want their work product claimed by individuals, should those individuals relocate to a different corporation.
Awesome, it should become standard procedure, all graphs should have misleading titles clarified somwhere else. Any more helpful suggestions or are you stating it was just incompetent sloppiness, which is no big deal.
So according to your rules in creating climate reports
1. Graphs do not require meaningful titles, describe them as whatever and correct later in the text.
2. If the incorrectly titled graphs are then used in isolation in deceptive ways, too bad
2. Incompetent sloppiness, well it happens.
[Wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment deleted. -mod]
They knew it would be misleading and that very few people would see the description. I have a difficult time believing that it wasn’t deliberate deception.
Rock, solid work by Lord Monckton, and the rock is a Gemstone!
He doesn’t mess about doeshe? Our noble Lord.
Game, Set, Match.
Pile on!
“M 6 List of ~450 papers most of which demonstrate that the medieval warm period was real.”
Link?
yet another example of tendentious sloppiness. ‘most of which’? How many exactly?
Would you buy a used car from this personage:
https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/lord-moncktons-rap-sheet/
Really Leif? Surely you can do better than that.
The rap-sheet speaks for itself
Leif
No doubt most of us have seen the spats between you and Monckton, and no doubt most of us have formed a view as to whether Monckton went too far in his threats of litigation/reporting to academia etc, but whilst there may be no love lost between the two of you, is there really any need to drag yourself down to such level?
If you want to point out errors, or incidences of sloppiness etc, do so. That would usefully carry the debate forward in a way that ad homs simply fails to achieve.
Ah yes, the rap sheet does speak for itself loud and clear. There is also a wonderfully long list of comments made in response. Interesting how there isn’t a single one made against the rap sheet. Other than suggesting improvements to protect it against those who are evil. It must be that the rap sheet is all true and no one is daring to dispute it. It wouldn’t be that he refuses to let the other side be shown. Couldn’t be that. Especially since Dr. Svalgaard is presenting this as??? Hmmm I was going to say proof, but there isn’t any argument presented, could this actually be just an ad hominem attack? No, not from the august personage, Dr Svalgaard.
What I find amazing is that anyone would show a plot combining a MODEL (GEOCARB 3) (“all models are worse than useless”) AND a plot of temperature meant to show only generic warm, cold, hot periods, based over a time of 100s of millions of years and then hinting “co2 was higher in the past and it did no harm”
This ignores the model, the approximation, and the fact the land masses were not in todays position. Going back more than 9 million years and different land positions are going to mess with “it was all OK then” statements.
I would also like to know to what heating event he would attribute the current CO2 rise?
Svalgaard , you agree the article is essentially correct. You appear to be unhappy about this and react with the cattiness of a spoiled child – funny.
Like I said before, Mr Svalgaard acts like Sheldon – like a spoiled child.
Which one Leif? Bickmore ?
How about you read the rap-sheet and decide for yourself, then report back.
I wouldn’t buy even a new car from you, Leif Svalgaard.
For it would have its sunroof always open, because the Sun doesn’t matter.
Feht unloads again. Your hatefulness shines through as usual. Did you even read the rap-sheet…
Dr. Svalgaard,
instead of expressing my dismay at your remark(s), I would instead thank you, for your public demonstration of the fallibility which afflicts us all.
Leif Svalgaard:
Future archaeologists, exhuming your remains for the edification of posterity, would undoubtedly remark upon the peculiar absence in your skeleton of a single funny bone.
Meanwhile, our grateful descendants shall erect a heroic statue of Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, gracefully adorning the fresh lawns of Hyde Park.
I went and read it, Leif. There’s some damning items there, to be sure.
There is also vitriolic slander and unfounded allegation. We are known by the company we keep. You choose Barry Bickmore’s slanderous blog as your source to prove Monchton’s irrelevance.
A lot of the items refer to no source, or the source sited is, itself, unfounded allegation and slander. Some of the sources do not check out at all. The link may be broken, the link may not be to a credible source or it may not support the argument being made.
One example is the ‘banning of the Koran’ reference and a mis-characterization of the Holy Bible. (New Testament kind of nullifies a lot of what’s said in the old-testament, Christians don’t believe in the stoning of adultresses or the execution of homosexuals, at least not in any church I’ve ever been to.) His argument fails completely in light of this knowledge.
I believe Monckton probably did say that the passages of the Koran that call for the murder of infidels violate some incitement clause somewhere, especially when read aloud to believers in Allah, and that those passages should be banned. I am unaware of a ‘New Testament’ in the Koran which would nullify or reverse the meaning of these passages.
I also don’t recall ever sitting in a Christian church and hearing the pastor/reverend/priest read the passages about executing homosexuals at all, let alone in a way designed to incite parishioners to action. Then again, I’ve never sat in a mosque or madras so I don’t know what they do. I have heard that some mosques are radical and act in that manner. The actions of some members of that religion seem to bear that out. At any rate, the implication made at the blog-site is that there is some moral equivalence between the two books meanings and that Monchton is just a bigot.
Not when people of the one faith routinely terrorize and execute people of other faiths in the name of their God and while extolling their prophet’s book. The whole point is invalid because there are not Christian terrorists holding muslims hostage, threatening to execute them if they will not convert. I don’t remember a Christian shooting up an Army reception HQ while shouting ‘Jesus Saves!’ I do not recall dead muslims being dragged through the streets of Tel Aviv while the hebrews hit them with bats. I am unaware of any Christians flying planes into the towers in Kuala Lumpur. Unless you count getting burned alive by your government’s careless operatives as a terrorist act, Christians very seldom commit such acts. At least not in this day and age.
To summarize; the list of sins committed by LMofB is overshadowed by the leftist zealotry and unfounded allegations.
Not to say LMofB is lily white and of unquestionable esteem. I realize he’s on the fringe in a lot of his dealings and says things that are difficult to accept, let alone support.
But you would do well to distance yourself from a list such as the one to which you refere. It combines valid points with borderline slander and terrible insinuation while ignoring any adherence to logic or notions of fair play.
On one particular page, in reply to one particular comment, wikipedia is listed as a source document by the owner of the page. You certainly have heard the name William Connoley. That got me started. wiki. skeptical science. desmogblog. They’re all there. The dogmatic purveyors of CAGW propaganda. These are the main sources in support of the comments that Barry makes in regard to climate issues.
Now, I have also read some of the briefings Mann has filed with the court. He has, in fact, claimed to be a Nobel Laureate and disavowed any involvement with or responsibility for an item that is on his actual (i checked)CV as of about a month ago. I didn’t keep copies. I did check his CV. It was there. I’ve read the court brief filed by Mann’s attorneys. He has specifically denied any involvement with something that he specifically takes professional credit for.
Now, you can attack LMofB for the sloppiness of this or that. He isn’t a scientist. As such I don’t see him trying to get peer reviewed articles on climate change published. Fact is, he probably went too deep in explaining why Steyn’s comments aren’t slanderous; Mann is actually guilty of fraudulent representation of scientific information. In fact, Dr. Richard Muller of the Berkeley BEST project, made comments about Mann on a public radio address that far outstrip anything Steyn has said about him.
Muller accused him of pure academic fraud. Said if scientists were licensed Mann should lose his.
If you want to pick apart this one piece of Monchton’s contribution, I would suggest maybe you ought to step back and take a look at the larger picture. You want to treat Monchton as climate scientists SHOULD be treated every single time they try to get something published; nit-pick it until it is perfect, or it doesn’t get published. Fine. He isn’t a scientist. We all know that.
But you probably ought to think really hard if you want to be associated with the Barry Bickmore’s of the world.
Fair enough. But both Mann and Monckton are ‘sue-happy’ activists and equally economical with the truth for the sake of their ’cause’ and self-aggrandizement . Both are despicable with no redeeming features. Of course, many people here have drunk the cool-aid and can’t think straight anymore. There is no hope for them, let them admire their hero and the statue in Hyde Park.
I believe you are referring to this Barry Bickmore, a devout missionary and once seminary teacher in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_R._Bickmore .
This man is willing to mislead his readers even in the name of his strongly held religious beliefs: http://www.tektonics.org/af/bickmore02.php : he misapplies citations; he exaggerates; he makes statements without evidence; he make “outrageous” errors; he “badly misapprehends the point of this passage”; etc – all in chapter one.
The author of this “rap sheet” is clearly not a man to be trusted to tell the truth.
Leif Svalgaard: yet another example of tendentious sloppiness. ‘most of which’? How many exactly?
Is that a real problem? Would you be happy with 51%, as in the sometimes commented “most of global warming since the end of the Little Ice Age”?
Whether you’d buy a used car from Christopher Monckton, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Kevin Trenberth, John Holdren, James Hansen or Al Gore may be an interesting topic for consideration, but I’d like to know if you found any real errors in this essay by Christopher Monckton.
I wish Monckton would have provided a link, but lists with dozens if not hundreds of papers on the global reality of the MWP & LIA are readily available.
Pop Tech lists about 38 (out of now over 1350 papers generally supporting CO2 skepticism, up from the original ~450 in 2009), but more on the MWP have come out since 2012, of course:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#MWP
Even the “Father of Global Warming”, Wallace Broecker, considered the MWP real and global:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/291/5508/1497.short
His Science paper set off a flurry of emails included in the first Climategate batch.
A longer list often linked is the Idsos’ CO2 Science site’s MWP Project:
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Haven’t counted how many they’re up to, nor rated their relevance or robustness.
Correct me if wrong, but IMO both Gavin & Mikey also voted for the MWP before they voted against it, after it became an inconvenient truth.
In Bizarro Science as opposed to real science, practitioners change the data instead of the models when the models fail miserably.
Medieval Warm Period, a few papers over the years.
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Great information, and remarkably correlates to a recent thread elsewhere, where I defend the reputation of Lord Monckton of Brenchly :
http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Bill-Gates-at-the-House-of-Lords-London/
Sorry, make that Brenchley. Way back in my early childhood schooling, a class exercise revealed that I was the worst speller of fellow students names.
I was also one of the “shiest” people on the planet, well into my adulthood. This experience had great consequence to my life, and shaped a lot of who I am today. More to be revealed soon-ish.
I would have been way off on Monckton. I always copy and paste the names, I suck a being able to spell names. If there are a lot of names I’ll paste it into a word doc first…
Maybe OT:
I am very worried. I have purchased a new oil filter for my outboard motor and find that it is a MANN FILTER.
Will fitting this filter cause the piston rings to fail or damage the O-ring seal?
(Apologies to mods.)
Maybe not – but there is a 99% chance a hockey stick will show up in it before too long… keep an eye on it 🙂
You should be very pleased about that. It will keep the Manns out of your motor, allowing it to run normally with no hockey-stick related malfunctions!
With a Mann-filter, the only way is up! So, expect higher oil temps. Get rid of it!
What are the chances that climategate content will be rejected by the court(s)? A lot of things hang on same. /mark fraser
It will definitely be ruled inadmissible.
It’s provenance is not proven. And it may have been obtained by improper means.
Actual its provenance is proven, ironically, by the joke investigations has the reason for these was the content of the e-mails , therefore the honest of their contents and the validity of where they were obtained form , was accepted.
nonsense. The investigations that “cleared” Mann of any wrong doing were convened to address those very emails. Steyn and the rest of the world formed their opinion of climate science by reading those emails. You’re trying to deny Steyn a defense to an accusation of libel by a litigious dweeb.
Simply subpoena the originating emails from UVA or PSU and verify the emails were accurate and sent by Mann. Mikey cannot hide behind FOIA dodging and sympathetic liberal judges on this one. It’s all on the table this time. Mann bluffed and Steyn responded by going all in.
It’s sad that a lawsuit originated by Mann was the only way he would be held accountable, but in the end the truth (hopefully) will eventually come to light.
I don’t think the provenance of the email correspondence is in doubt:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/CRUupdate
The police were called in due to their proven provenance. Otherwise why bother with thousands of false emails? You would not dare call the police as you could be charged for wasting police time in the UK.
As usual a couple of proportionality petulant retorts show up that avoid the vast weight of the most germane in an attempt to corrupt any honest measure of of significance which easily judges Mann et al to be the charlatans they are.
troll bait, in other words
Is it possible to graph the number of new commenters on articles
Are their certain subjects (e.g. Mann’s mendacity) or certain authors (the Viscount) who attract newbies?
It would be interesting to see what widens the audience.
And whether there is an real evidence of professional internet warriors defending the Green Orthodoxy.
Christopher Monckton,
November 19 is coming soon, so I find your timing is perfect for your analysis of Mann’s incorrect statements in his legal documents that were filed in his litigation against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review.
In two days it will be the 5th Anniversary of Climategate. It was on November 19, 2009, when the collection of UEA email messages, data files and data processing programs were released without authorization.
John
Debunked point by point, evidence at hand.
Keep it coming, Christopher. GruberGate has exposed the fra*dster’s methods for all to see (as if we didn’t already know). Time to go for a knockout punch.
Somebody should tell Mann about this. Christopher Monckton has accused him of criminal wrongdoing! Surely he should sue to protect his good name. LOL
Mann doesn’t care, he’s got backing for acting like a fool. The only thing that might concern Mann is that his legal bankroll dries up.
Whoever Mann’s backers are, they aren’t likely to give up on the dweeb. Tom Steyer spent about $100 million this year backing seven Democrat Senators and the Florida governor, all of whom lost. If he, Soros, Bloomberg or other billionaires out to boost their egos and “save the planet” are willing to fork over that much scratch in losing campaigns, then supporting Mann’s lies is chump change.
Mann is still the darling of the Climate Fearosphere and gives frequent commentary in such bastions of slanted Leftist political speech as NPR.
No, I have not accused Dr Mann of “criminal wrongdoing”. I have provided evidence that he misled a court. That may or may not constitute fraud, perjury or contempt of court: it will be for the prosecuting authorities to decide. I am not an expert on the law of the District of Columbia or of the United States.
A truly beautiful analysis. Brilliant. Now, here’s a thing; after Mann is busted in court as he inevitably will be, won’t the tantalising prospect exist of just about all of humanity joining in the largest class action ever seen, against Mann, for damages? It would be a nano-cent award individually, but at least it would relieve Mann (and others, like maybe Gore) of their ill gotten gains, and rightly financially destroyed by the costs. Just Saying…
A graph or graphic is an image, not a line on a graph.
Jones was the one responsible for plotting the data, doing the splice and the smoothing to hide the graft and choosing the line colours that misleadingly suggest each line is one dataset, not some hybrid, smoothed splice of two physically different measurement.
There was one graph and it was Jones work. There was no “Mann’s graph”, there was one line of the graph which used Mann’s data but it was Jones’ graph.
His lordship is up to his usual disingenuous word twisting games to over cook what is in fact quite damning without the need to misrepresent. That makes it foolish because it only aids those who would wish to defend Mann and dismiss the allegation.
It is sufficient to note that all parties accepted and approved the falsified graph and were in full knowledge of that the data really showed ( the non-reliability of all the proxy series ) and that there was visually deception by blending two datasets into one line and presenting it as one continuous line.
Mann accepted the graph produced by Jones using “Mike’s Nature trick” and claims co-authorship. That is sufficient to establish the claim of wilfully misleading the court.
This unbearably long article and attempts to create “Mann’s graph” is nothing but misleading and confusing.
“Mann accepted the graph produced by Jones using “Mike’s Nature trick” and claims co-authorship. ”
I do not see how adding that Manns graph was indeed part of the final flawed product, hurts the claim of misleading the court.
Because it is inaccurate. Mann contributed to the graph in the sense that his data is used per the credits on page 2. There’s no indication that Mann actually was involved directly in producing the graphic. His “graph” was not “added,” just his data. One curve in the graph is from his data. The distinction is important. He did however apparently claim credit for it, in much the same manner he claimed a Nobel from being in the same room so to speak.
The thing with civil suits is that wasting the judge’s time is a bad idea, just as transparently lying to him would be. It is plain that some of Monckton’s aggravation with Mann has spilled into the brief to the point where it inhibits his argument. And, since civil suits are scarcely civil, rather than “build a case” about how nefarious your opposition is (essentially simple name-calling), it is better to simply scuttle his arguments – provided you are not in the wrong – with very simple, documented facts that contradict him. That allows the judge an easy route to decide just whom the mulch artist is, and who is a naive, wide-eyed, honest person. This works very, very well, and can lead to threats to lawyers of fines or jail time for wasting the judge’s time. Some judges do think a lawyer should really verify that he has a case before submitting unsupported allegations to the court.
The approach is particularly useful when your opponent is narcissist of the first water. A narcissist generally cannot distinguish reality from fantasy until they’re in a jail cell trying to understand the definition of perjury as something outside their delusions. Monckton’s approach is laying it on too thick. His anger and bitterness comes through and offers the suspicion of a taint to his argument. He needs to remember that among other things there’s is no certainty that the judge would consider the graph as “deceptive” within the realm of the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects stupid speech as well as truth, and even lies as long as they are not directly harmful to others.
“Monckton’s approach is laying it on too thick. His anger and bitterness comes through and offers the suspicion of a taint to his argument.”
Thank you Duster. That sums up my point rather well.
+1
Monkton should have just stuck with the point about Mann claiming the graphs had nothing to do with him, when clearly in several places he claimed co-authorship.
Hopefully Steyn will take what is useful from this note and discard the rest. Generally his Lordship does go on a bit. Sometimes less is more!
Alx, the thing is there are not “three graphs” in the righ hand panel , these is one and was Jones’ work. Monkton is trying to spin this into there being a “graph” by Mann there and there is not. This could be used to dismiss the overall accusation he is making.
Thanks TML, “less is more” is the point i was trying to make. As well as not making shit up when accusing someone else of being misleading.
I’m sure Steyn does not need to trudge though Monkton’s blog posts, he seems plenty sharp enought to make his own arguments.
Greg Goodman: Mann accepted the graph produced by Jones using “Mike’s Nature trick” and claims co-authorship. That is sufficient to establish the claim of wilfully misleading the court.
This unbearably long article and attempts to create “Mann’s graph” is nothing but misleading and confusing.
You state that some details are boring and superfluous, but where are they misleading?
Does one of the lines on the graph represent Mann’s data? Did he give that data to Jones to use? Did Mann give his approval over the final product?
Mr Goodman, as ever, is unconstructive. If he did not want to read a long article, or would have preferred shorter words and more nice piccy-wiccies, then he should have gone to the “Real”Climate kindergarten.
Pointing out that you are destroying your own case by [snip] is _contrctuctive_ criticism if you have the humility to consider it.
Rather than reflect on the fact that you are falsely claiming a line on a graph by Jones is “Mann’s graph” and that you are undermining your own case, you make irrelevant, dimissive comments suggest I go to RC.
You are intelligent and articulate so that is a very unsatistactory response.
I’m supportive of your attempt to point out Mann’s deception. I’m suggesting that you stick to the facts and be more focused. Too much bile showing in this diatribe. Makes it a lot less convincing.
It appears on his CV and he is credited with it in the document.
It’s his.
He specifically denied any responsibility for or involvement with the image in a document filed with the court.
That document is also a signed affidavit. It’s his.
This is perjury.
Scientific misconduct aside, Dr. Mann has lied to the court. That is a felony.
Own it.
Greg Goodman: A graph or graphic is an image, not a line on a graph.
Sez who? A line on a graph is a graph of the function that has been plotted.
It is too bad that all of this effort/cost must happen. The monies should be spent of getting the world ready for the “Global Cooling Crisis [GCC]”.
I’m on board with GCC. Will they be giving out fur coats made from Polar Bear pelts?
This fits with the other technique to hide deficiencies which is to present outdated graphs and models relative to more recent actual data.
Resourceguy: This fits with the other technique to hide deficiencies which is to present outdated graphs and models relative to more recent actual data.
They are relevant to the charge of slander, and of possible contempt of court.
Much has I like to see Mann fall, sadly I still feel we will see a Mann backdown followed by him claiming ‘victimhood’ which his followers will believe without question with most of the press doing the same or not mentioning it at all. Or I could be lucky and his ego does overcome him and he goes all out while ‘the Team ‘ throw him under the bus to save themselves , now that would be a good day.
Mann will still have to drop the case against Steyn or get it thrown out of court. Either course of action will put the lie to his going to court to clear his good name. If he truly wants his day in court, Steyn’s waiting… and waiting and waiting.
Ttfn, even if Mann drops the now separate Steyn suit, it wom’t save him because Steyn has countersued for $10 million plus costs. Mann could run, but he cannot hide.
As long as Mann has not made those filings in the Steyn Suit, dropping his suit could save him from contempt and perjury charges. Mann is in a no win situation.. But then he was from the get go as long as the courts still uphold the first amendment.
I hope you’re right, Rud, but I’ve read a lot of comments by lawyers arguing that Steyn’s counter suit doesn’t stand a chance and will probably be tossed as frivolous. It’s always been my impression that Steyn filed the counter suit because he figured the bar’s been set so low by Judge Coombs judgment concerning NR’s anti-slapp motion that no case is too frivolous for the DC courts.
Don’t forget that Steyn still has his counter-suit against Mann … doesn’t matter what Mann does to back out, Steyn still has him on his BBQ fork.
I think Lord Chris (or however Brits politely style a man of his heritage) is correct in his facts, but dilatory in his timing.
Would that he (and a U.S.-based legal team) had submitted such an essay as a “friend of the court” brief _prior_ to deadlines for such submissions going into the court’s deliberations. Failing to join battle in the actual arena, such an essay, published in the open media before court deadlines, might have led to CEI’s friends making a stronger case.
Publishing this analysis and evidence now, however correct it may be, is less helpful to the debate than a more timely effort.
Though if the intent is to troll Mann into filing ANOTHER suit, then the timing may be just perfect. Were Mann to file such a complaint, the current defense claims that Mann is a serial and vexatious litigant who abuses the process and intends Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) not for personal damages but to influence public opinion on matters of public interest, well then Lord Chris’s timing would be shown to be perfect.
Pretty sure Mann’s CV has been filed as a brief at this point.
Mann has a very serious problem on his hands right now.
The fact this website continues to publish this guy shows what a joke it is.
Perhaps the “joke” is your ability, or lack thereof, to read and comprehend treatises on legal and scientific matters?
Let us see how high Mann’s co-workers rated him..
Bradley:
I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should
never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year
“reconstruction”.
Osborn:
Because how can we be critical of Crowley for throwing out 40-years in the
middle of his calibration, when we’re throwing out all post-1960 data ‘cos the
MXD has a non-temperature signal in it, and also all pre-1881 or pre-1871 data
‘cos the temperature data may have a non-temperature signal in it!
Cook:
I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly can not be
defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the
science move ahead.
Cook:
One problem is that he [Mann] will be using the RegEM method, which provides no
better diagnostics (e.g. betas) than his original method. So we will still not
know where his estimates are coming from.’
http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/press-release.php
Debate the facts wight. Not your ignorance.