Book review by Andy May
Mark Steyn has written a wonderful new book on Dr. Michael Mann’s hockey stick and the controversy surrounding it. It is difficult to overstate the significance or impact of Mann’s Hockey Stick (Mann, Bradley, Hughes (23 April 1998), “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” (PDF), Nature 392 (6678): 779–787, Figure 5, the paper is often abbreviated as “MBH”). The Hockey Stick appeared in Figure 1 of the Summary for Policymakers of the third IPCC Assessment Report (called “TAR” published in 2001) and it was prominently displayed in Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” As the book clearly shows, both the graph and the movie have been thoroughly discredited by hundreds of scientists who have attempted and failed to reproduce Michael Mann’s hockey stick using his data and other proxy data. Further, MBH attempts to overturn hundreds of papers that describe a world-wide Medieval Warm Period from around 900 AD to 1300 AD. The chapter devoted to Dr. Deming discusses this, for more information see here, here and here.
Professor Jonathon Jones of Oxford University:
“The hockey stick is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence…the evidence is extraordinarily weak…its defenders were desperate to hide this fact…I’d always had an interest in pathological science, and it looked like I might have stumbled across a really good modern example…The Hockey Stick is obviously wrong. Everybody knows it is obviously wrong.”
As 1973 Nobel Prize winner Professor Ivar Giaever said “Global Warming has become a new religion – because you can’t discuss it and that is not right.”
Steyn’s book documents the problems with the hockey stick, its use by the IPCC without proper peer review or validation, and the attempt to cover up its problems. It does this artfully using the words of the scientists, both “alarmists” and “deniers” and those in between. The list of quoted scientists is huge and includes Mann’s co-authors and others who supported him even after the paper and his hockey stick were shown to be wrong and perhaps, fraudulent.
The hockey stick told us that the recent warming period (1950 to 1998) was unusual in the last thousand years and that this sort of sudden warming had (supposedly) never happened before and that man’s CO2 emissions were (presumably) the cause. After all, what else was unusual about that time period? Yet, all of these suppositions were wrong and the hockey stick was wrong. Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas and it does cause warming of the atmosphere by trapping heat radiated from the ground and oceans, no one who has studied the issue disputes that. But, the graph appeared to show that this Carbon Dioxide based warming was much more dominant in our climate than traditional paleoclimate studies, physics or chemistry would suggest. As noted above it was an extraordinary claim, yet it was accepted instantly without checking it. This had the effect of destroying the credibility of the IPCC and the previously respected publication Nature.
At the time that Michael Mann’s hockey stick was chosen to be Figure 1 of the TAR summary for policy makers, Mann had just received his PhD. As many in the book note, the ink was not yet dry on his diploma. Yet, in addition, he was made one of the lead authors of the very section of TAR that presented his hockey stick (see figure 2.20). As a result it was up to him to validate his own work. In the words of Dr. Rob Van Dorland, an IPCC lead author:
“It is strange that the climate reconstruction of Mann passed both peer review rounds of the IPCC without anyone ever really having checked it.”
The hockey stick was never validated, yet it became so famous that it was taught to young children all over the world in elementary schools. Many years later, in 2005, it was thoroughly debunked by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (often abbreviated M&M). They showed that using the statistical technique invented by Michael Mann even random number series (persistent trendless red noise, see M&M Figure 1) will generate a hockey stick. Basically, Mann had mined many series of numbers looking for hockey stick shapes and gave each series that had the shape he wanted a much higher weight, up to a weighting factor of 392! This was truly a case of selecting a desired conclusion and then molding the data to fit it. Prominent statisticians Peter Bloomfield, Dr. Edward Wegman and Professor David Hand said Michael Mann’s method of using principle components analysis was inappropriate and misleading and exaggerated the effect of recent global warming.
Mann’s notorious statistical exercise was not sufficient to build the entire hockey stick. Unfortunately for him, if his model was carried to the present day, it peaked in the 1940’s and then declined in temperature. So, he simply spliced actual estimated global temperatures to his proxy reconstruction and didn’t mention it in the article, this is the notorious and poorly understood “Mike’s Nature Trick” scandal. More on the fraudulent parts of the hockey stick, including the Briffa “hide the decline” trick can be found here. These two links on “hide the decline” and “Mike’s nature trick” are the most balanced and informative I know of, one is by Professor Curry and the other by Steve McIntyre.
As you can see in the book many prominent scientists in the IPCC knew the hockey stick was “crap” to quote Professor Simon Tett, Chair of Earth System Dynamics, University of Edinburgh, formerly with Met Offices Hadley Climate Research Unit or CRU. And they knew it as early as 2001, but no one said anything. And, as we know from “climategate” emails, even though they knew it was “crap” they colluded to block Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick’s paper challenging the hockey stick. For years Dr. Michael Mann and Dr. Phil Jones (Hadley CRU) kept the supporting data for the hockey stick secret as well as the computer algorithms they used to generate the hockey stick. This very act would normally have invalidated their work and the hockey stick, but it was accepted by Nature and the IPCC anyway. A very sad period of time for science.
Dr. Kevin Vranes in 2005 said ”Your [Dr. Mann’s] job is not to prevent your critics from checking your work; your job is to continue to publish…” “Why did the IPCC so quickly and uncritically accept the hockey stick?” asks Dr. Roy Spencer, “Because they wanted to believe it.” They needed it as a PR tool, they didn’t check it in any way they just ran with it.
One of the best critiques in the book is from Oxford Professor Jerome Ravetz:
“[The climate community] propounded as a proven fact, Anthropogenic Carbon-based Global Warming. There is little room for uncertainty in this thesis; it effectively needs hockey stick behavior in all indicators of global temperature, so that it is all due to industrialization. [This proposed “fact”] relied totally on a small set of deeply uncertain tree-ring data for the medieval period, to refute the historical evidence of a warming then; but it needed to discard that sort of data for recent decades, as they showed a sudden cooling from the 1960’s onwards!”
The problems encountered publishing the valid criticisms of Dr. Mann’s hockey stick are a serious indictment of the current peer review system, especially the systems at Nature and at the IPCC. Professor Hans Van Storch (University of Hamburg) went so far as to say “Scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process.” Reform is needed and some suggestions by Professor Ross McKitrick are made here. The current peer review process can and has been used to suppress valid and important papers. This is why I applaud the internet and scientific blogs, they prevent self-serving and arrogant scientists from blocking the truth. One thing we have seen since the time of Copernicus and Galileo, no deception of this magnitude lasts forever.
Contrary to the myth that 97% of climate scientists believe we are headed toward a man-made climate doom, the truth is that a very small group of second rate climate scientists have captured the attention of some prominent political and media figures. They have also isolated themselves from the rest of the scientific community and suffer because of it. To quote Professor the Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool:
“We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians. Indeed there would be mutual benefit if there were closer collaboration and interaction between CRU and a much wider scientific group outside the relatively small international circle of temperature specialists.”
So, the following question is from Professor Mike Kelly (Cambridge) and it was directed to Dr. Keith Briffa, but could easily have been directed to Mike Mann or any of the alarmists:
“Given that the outputs of your work are being used to promote the largest revolution mankind has every contemplated, do you have any sense of the extent to which the quality control and rigour of approach must be of the highest standards in clear expectation of deep scrutiny?”
At this point, it is fair to ask what Dr. Mann and his colleagues have to say about all of this. The book does go there in some detail. Dr. Mann claims that his hockey stick has been replicated by others and this is true. But, they not only used the same data or similar data, but they used the same statistical techniques that have been shown to be critically flawed. One case in point is fairly typical of the others. Karoly and Gergis, in 2012, published their own hockey stick to rave reviews in the public media, especially in Australia. It claimed 95% certainty that the recent decades in Australasia were the warmest in 1000 years. They used similar proxies as Dr. Mann and used the same statistical techniques. Steven McIntyre went to work and blew it up in less than three weeks. He sent his statistical analysis to the authors. Dr. Karoly and Dr. Gergis, to their credit, recognized their error and withdrew their paper, even after the mainstream media praise. As Joanne Nova wrote, “In May it was all over the papers, in June it was shown to be badly flawed. By October, it quietly gets withdrawn.”
Just as Karoly and Gergis’s paleoclimate reconstruction disappeared, Mann’s seems to be disappearing as well. Professor Philippe De Larminat noted in 2014:
“The hockey stick curve, which ignores large climatic events, seems to have come straight from another world… This Chapter 5 [in the Fifth and latest IPCC report] in question does not make the slightest mention of the famous publication from Mann et al … neither in the text nor among the some 1,000 specific bibliographical references in this chapter. Given the extensive use that the IPCC made of it in the past (cited six times in the Third Assessment Report), and the controversy it still causes, this absence is peculiar.”
Let’s hope that hockey stick fiction goes away like the 97% consensus fiction has.
Professor Ian Plimer notes:
“In the next IPCC report, the Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age mysteriously reappeared. This suggests that the IPCC knew that the “hockey stick” was invalid. This is a withering condemnation of the IPCC. The “hockey stick” was used as the backdrop for announcements about human-induced climate change, it is still used by Al Gore, and it is still used in talks, on websites and in publications by those claiming that the world is getting warmer due to human activities. Were any of those people who view this graphic told that the data before 1421 AD was based on just one lonely alpine pine tree?”
So, the book shows that the hockey stick is dead to all scientists on all sides of the climate debate. What is the impact of this appalling chapter in the history of science? I think that Professor Judith Curry says it best:
“With regards to climate science, IMO the key issue regarding academic freedom is this: no scientist should have to fall on their sword to follow the science where they see it leading or to challenge the consensus. I’ve fallen on my dagger (not the full sword), in that my challenge to the consensus has precluded any further professional recognition and a career as a university administrator. That said, I have tenure, and am senior enough to be able retire if things genuinely were to get awful for me. I am very very worried about younger scientists, and I hear from a number of them that have these concerns.”
This is an outstanding and important book and I highly recommend it.
This post was originally published on andymaypetrophysicist, republished here with the author’s permission via our “submit a story” link on the menu bar.
You can order it on Amazon here, .
…’Davey appell. Paging Davey appell! Jonathon Jones is seeking input….. wait, never mind. ‘pears you already blew that gig.’
No comments allowed on the previous article … “On NASA’s recent sea level claim: “Science Isn’t Broken” (Except when it is)” … ???
[Noted. .mod]
Yes, and I dearly wanted to post a few tidbits that I have found over the last few years.
Book ordered, should be a good read.
I have my signed copy. Thanks Mark. If there is any left, I want to buy another one.
Great review! This will go down as a very dark period in the history of science. Unfortunately it is going to take many years to overcome the Mann/hockey stick insanity because the useful idiots in the media, politics, and academia bought it hook, line, and sinker. They never thought to question it because it sounded good and fit their naive world view. The scientific community, as a whole, should be ashamed of the way it let this nonsense prevail for so long. Apparently all the grant money it helped generate clouded their better judgement. Yes, a very dark period in the history of science.
Agreed with a slight tangent; the reason CAGW will continue in spite of virtually every prediction being falsified is:
“In May it was all over the papers, in June it was shown to be badly flawed. By October, it quietly gets withdrawn.” Facts (are boring and) will not defeat this (anytime soon)
Twain? Government misdiagnosis the problem and miss-applies the wrong solution.? I’m about half convinced that wind and solar (focus) projects get funded because they are spectacularly big. Kind of a self congratulatory monuments. Small and useful need not apply.
taz1999 says:
the reason CAGW will continue in spite of virtually every prediction being falsified is:
Money. And lots of it.
More than a $billion annually in federal grants support the climate scare. That much money buys CAGW.
If the money hose was turned off, the CAGW scare would evaporate overnight.
dbstealey:
If the money hose was turned off, the CAGW scare would evaporate overnight.
Violent agreement there. People having to use their own money tend to be more rational about cost/benefit. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a way to clamp the money hose.
I sugest the next green directive could be a money burning power plant. Turn green to steam baby…
Very well said. Thanks Dave
I’m almost done with the book and I don’t think there could be a more devastating testimonial to the farcical history that was the hockey stick. In addition to that, it will be next to impossible to win a libel case for the term ‘fraud’ when this book demonstrates that scientists all over the world have been using the exact same term for years. The damage to science, peer review and public trust is still being gauged, but will linger for decades. Michael Mann shot to stardom with his ‘stick’ and seems determined to ride it all the way down to oblivion.
If the case ever goes to trial, it should prove highly amusing.
The irony is that Mann can’t now destroy his UVA emails because that would be destruction of evidence.
Blown up by the fool’s own petard!
Mann’s forced to go to trial. If he withdraws, then he has to face Steyn’s countersuit for $20M or so.
Dropping his suit against Steyn could be taken as evidence that even Mann knows how weak his case was. It would serve to strengthn Steyn’s case.
Machts nichts if Mann backtracks now and drops his suit against Steyn. Mark the Great has countersued.
A gutsy guy and great champion of freedom of the press.
Mann can now argue that the book and its attending publicity has irretrievably biased any potential jury pool, so a fair trial is impossible. The liberal judge will agree and dismiss both the suit and counter-suit.
Mann should phone Hillary for advice on this.
I’m pretty sure that a jury could be impaneled which had not read the book nor heard any coverage of it.
This was a fabulous review of the book and of the false work of “Dr.” Mann. Thanks to the reviewer Andy May and to the author of the book Mark Steyn.
(ever notice that many good people are named Mark? Is is just coincidence? I think not)
I’ve always thought so.
Next we’ll have two cats showing up and agreeing as well.
My two Cats agree!
Hat-tip to PiperPaul 🙂
Thank you for an excellent summary!
I said something similar in the review of this book on Climate etc but state it again. As someone who earned a PhD from the same department at Yale as Mann did, I find his science, his hockey stick, and his advocacy an embarrassment to that department, that institution its ‘geo-alumni’ and suspect I am not alone. It’s a sad day this book even had to be written. The economic damage of Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ is incalculable.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
Not only the economic damage. The human cost is also huge. The higher energy prices, higher taxes and loss of jobs have adversely affected many millions of people. It would be nice if the perpetrators of this hoax would have to pay for their crimes.
Dr. Klein, you are in a league so far removed from the likes of Mann as to be untouched. As any practicing sedimentologist will agree, it was hard not to see your deeply significant contribution to the discipline. Thanks for weighing in here. The sedimentary record is mostly a record of the climate changes of the time….which essentially says that there is no such thing as a base line in climate. Every Cross-bed, every scour mark, every fore-reef talus records a change. But what do I know…You’re the boss!
Message for Mike Bromley:
Thank you very much for your kind words. I did an Internet search and discovered you are one of Andrew Miall’s students. Interesting coincidence. Way back in the Precambrian of my life, I was Andrew’s external PhD examiner. Also, I noticed you earned a BS from Acadia University, right in the heart of the Acadian Triassic where I completed a PhD thesis (early Precambrian of my career).
Hmm, maybe you can be an interested Party in Stein’s case. You have been harmed, too, and need the closure of a large judgment against Mann. And of your department stripping Mann of his unearned “doctorate.”
Since it doesn’t appear to be possible to post a comment on the previous post by David Middleton titled “On NASA’s recent sea level claim”, I will put this here.
The extended quote taken from the FiveThirtyEight blog that Middleton opens with is cut short to finish with this sentence:
However, it continues in the FiveThirtyEight blog:
Cutting the final sentences out completely changes the meaning. This is quoting out of context. If what another writer says doesn’t support your position, you can’t simply cut part out to make it better fit your position.
[Request you copy this, re-submit it under “Tips and Notes” directly. It will be reviewed (and acted upon) faster when submitted there. ..mod]
Not sure how that happened, but comments were turned off. Please put them on the appropriate thread as it accepts comments now.
Thank you !
Anthony – those comments still aren’t working right. It says there are 63 comments but shows only a handful and cycles back to the start of commments, no chance to enter one. Is there a virus or something in there? Arno
[To be sure Anthony sees a comment like this, put it in Tips & Notes. ~mod.]
Good review. My pre-ordered Kindle copy comes soon. Will be an enjoyable quick read, as have practically memorized Monfort’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, and engaged Marcott’s cloned abomination up close and personal (David Appell, did you read that essay, since you recently cited Marcott again as supporting Mann? That joke is on you.)
This, being religion not science, even Steyn’s excellent work won’t change the minds of many alarmists. Here’s an Amazon review:
Pure unadulterated ad hominem. Truly disgusting. The reason that only older scientists are willing to stand up is that young ones WILL have their careers truncated. This really is the Emperor’s New Clothes on steroids. As Judith Curry put it:
Fifty years from now folks will publish many learned papers describing the collective insanity that is CAGW ‘science’. They will ask, “The evidence was so obvious, how could they have been so stupid?” Some wit may even cite H. C. Anderson.
and my review or the review…
He likely meant to say “one dollar climate science textbook …”.
I get stuff wrong all day long. Maybe I am wrong again (here) and he was actually intending to say something that doesn’t make logical sense.
On the other hand, he could have just been trying to be ironic … showing that most stuff on that side of the big lie is not reviewed (peer or otherwise).
The hubris is so strong in Russel S. that I understand he felt qualified to review a book sight unseen. I seem to recall another anointed one reviewing a book without reading it. That reviewer went on to behave in an even more dastardly manner towards the Heartland Institute. Noble cause corruption with the accent on corruption.
[blockquote]Steyn’s highly elliptical, ( and often self-contradictory ) quote mining [/blockquote]
Looks as if the reviewer (computer program?) has used “elliptical” to mean defective that makes it, ironically, difficult to understand. The stupidity is then compounded by suggesting that people who understand the scientific method are to be ignored in favour of someone who argued that incredibly active hurricane years such as 2005 would become the norm rather than flukes.
Oops. Bad case of hmtl dyslexia today.
Russell’s review has been identified to Amazon as abuse. Even though it is unlikely that Amazon will bother to delete vvussell .
What is obvious from lazy and dishonest vvussell’s review is that he cut and pasted it from elsewhere. One hundred dollar textbooks are his recommendation? Not forgetting that he got the cost wrong.
Well said. Climate Science is also politics, and in politics this is “Par For the Course”.
“The Hockey Stick is obviously wrong. Everybody knows it is obviously wrong”
The fact that most climate “scientists” keep this quiet says the entire field of climate “science” is corrupt. The fact that we don’t see it on the front page at the NYT an the lead story at all TV networks show that they are also corrupt..
Same with the media’s willful repetition of the lie about “97% of scientists” without doing their job to point out that the bogus assertion is based upon worse than worthless surveys by an Australian cartoonist who likes to dress up like a N@zi.
I am hoping Mark Steyn will write “A Disgrace to the Profession: Volume 0: The Backstory on Climate’s Most Famous Bully”. Was he always like that? Is that how he came to fame? Does he beat his wife? Does he have a dog? Was he the child of an alien? No, joking aside, what do we know about his past?
Let’s keep the psycho-babble out of this debate, please. We have enough problems dealing with the reality of hucksters and charlatan climate scientists or climate studies groups.
What “debate”? Haven’t you heard the science is “settled”? 🙂
Mickey has tried to suppress his past by keeping his UVA emails private, despite their residing on a public server and his having been a public employee when he perpetrated them.
He does apparently have a wife and daughter, although like Politburo figures of old, he keeps them under wraps.
I’m desperately hoping he writes something about cook and lewandowsky so offensive that they sue him, so that he can give those two frauds the same treatment he is giving mann.
(popcorn) +1
Fraudulent perhaps?? Fraudulent definite. the guy should be in jail for the damage he has caused. Tony Heller’s work will be remembered for all time mark these words lukewarmers! LOL
Mickey Mann should share a cell with his former colleague Jerry Sandusky, who is to sport as Mann is to science.
+ 1
Don’t know why, butt the idea of Mann and Sandusky in the same cell makes me lol.
Sandusky and Mann could have a soap-dropping competition.
I’m still asking myself why it’s taking so long for Penn State to tell Mann he’s being fired!! Penn State had undergo a very serious scandal with their football program and if they aren’t embarrassed at how Mann has suied every climate scientist for defammation of his character.
They are up front about why he is still there. It’s because he brings in so many grants from US government agencies.
Penn State has lacked any real leadership for some time. Spanier was a lapdog for Joe Pa and his band of merry men. Then they tried to bring in David Smith, who was found to have improprieties in his expenses while at SUNY. They had a couple placeholder admins, and now Barron is not what I’d call A-List material. He had a pretty lackluster record at Florida State. As an institution they don’t appear to have much upside.
A lot of lackness for decades now coming home to roost for the Nittany pussy cats.
FYI- Eric Barron, now president of Penn State, is a climate scientists before he became an administrator. He has great personal and people skills, much needed for that job (Proof: he got the football sanctions lifted by the NCAA). However, because both he and Mann are in the climate field, I suspect there just might be some sort of conflict of interest here so, Mr. deSouza, don;t expect much movement.
George, I think that there were several members of the NCAA Executive Committee that were leaning heavily toward reducing/lifting sanctions simply because it was placing a huge burden on student athletes who were not at fault. There was a receptive audience. If you look back, Barron made a mess of Coach Bowden’s retirement, (sic), and during his tenure FSU’s total research expenditures, as a percent of total university research expenditures, trended down fairly reliably.
Wouldn’t it be great if Mann were to be transfered from Penn State to state penn.
“Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas and it does cause warming of the atmosphere by trapping heat radiated from the ground and oceans, no one who has studied the issue disputes that. ” This is false. Plenty of scientists and people with common sense dispute this. Please don’t make falsehoods of your own. Your derision of Michael Mann doesn’t excuse your own blindness or stupidity.
There are lots of people, both scientists and not, who comment on this blog who happen to agree that GHE is nonsense. However, I don’t think those who don’t are going to be persuaded by insults. Present the evidence and the open minded will eventually see it.
CO2 should be referred to as a radiative gas.
Whilst the laboratory properties of the gas are clear, how it works and inter acts in the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere and resulting effect are presently moot.
I have yet to see any observational evidence that withstands the ordinary rigours of scientific scrutiny that establishes that in the 19th to 21st century atmospheric conditions encountered here on planet Earth, that it has led to any warming in that period.
I agree. Only alarmists and lukewarmers who do not understand physics would make such a claim. “Trapping heat” indeed!
The only so-called “heat-trapping” CO2 does is to delay the ultimate passage of IR photons from the surface to space by a few milliseconds, and which is easily reversed and erased each night. CO2 preferentially transfers heat to N2/O2 via collisions rather than emitting a photon, which accelerates convective cooling -by far the dominant heat transfer mechanism in the troposphere.
Does CO2 absorb IR? Yes it does. I’ve personally observed this in a friend’s lab. (He uses CO2 lasers.) Does CO2 emit the energy thus gained? Yes it does, otherwise you couldn’t use it to lase IR. This being the case, then what happens In the atmosphere? The CO2 must be emitting IR in all directions randomly, roughly half toward space and half toward the earth. So the IR isn’t merely delayed by a few milliseconds, close to half of it is sent back toward the surface,
If you take a digital IR camera and point it up at the sky at night you’ll find that the sky has a temperature. What is it that is registering in the camera, that enables it to make this measurement, if not back radiation? What effect is this this back radiation going to have on the earth’s surface?
Of course you can measure back-radiation from the average -18C or 255K “blackbody” sky.
Yes or No: Do you think a blackbody at 255K can warm a blackbody at 288K or 15C?
Science is about making measurements. Such statements as ‘CO2 causes warming’ are largely meaningless unless some kind of handle can be put on HOW MUCH warming it causes. The classical theory actually says ‘Not very much’ so the alarmists have to compound this small amount with alleged feedbacks.
This is where the pseudoscience comes in, because the existence of these feedbacks cannot be proven. Furthermore it is relatively easy to show that if they did exist, the climate would be completely unstable anyway. Thus, the fact that the climate is relatively stable suggests that the postulated feedbacks do not exist.
Read Schmidthusen’s PhD thesis, University of Bremen. He describes the GHE in detail and shows areas that are net negative in Antarctica. But, over the whole world in terms of temperature the GHE is net positive. But, by a much smaller number than claimed by the IPCC.
It seems to me that if there were positive feedbacks that the temperature would do a hard over to the extreme long ago. If the temp increase caused more water vapor then further raised temps then more water vapor would cause more water vapor more temp increase on and on. In electronics if you have positive feedback it will drive the output to saturation.
How anyone with any sense allowed this nonsense to be put to print, baffles me.
And therein lies the problem. As I understand it the hypothesis goes that CO2 causes a rise in atmospheric temperature which in turn increases the water vapour content of the atmosphere. This increased water vapour content then raises the temperature of the atmosphere which causes more evaporation which raises the atmospheric temperature and on and on. However the alleged process should occur without any CO2 at all, viz. the action of the sun is to heat the atmosphere (containing water vapour) which causes an increase in water vapour content. This then raises the temperature of the atmosphere which causes a further increase in atmospheric temperature etc. etc. etc.
I repeat: the alleged feedback should occur without any CO2 in the atmosphere at all!
co2 is a trace gas. it cant cause plant growth either
sarc off
The name of the judge who decided the hockeystick fraud was valid should be included in articles referring to it.
Heartland Institute had no legal recourse to Peter Gleick’s scam and his and Kevin Trenberth’s defamation of Roy Spencer, other than Norman Rodgers’ great American Thinker article, received little coverage other than on climate website.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/05/is_roy_spencer_the_worlds_most_important_scientist.html
Historical records may be irrelevant in a month, but it seems to me that references to outrageous corruption should include the identity of all major actors.
Skepticalscience still has an insanely fictitious post on the Heartland theft/impersonation/libel, that includes no mention of misconduct, BTW
BTW. Lubos Motl should sue, too, I think – only as a disincentive to John Cook’s future attacks.
I just received my copy from Amazon this very afternoon. So far my favorite quote is from Dr. Judith Curry “The climate science field, and the broader community of academics, have received a tremendous black eye as a result of defenidng the hockey stick and its behavior”
LIkewise the field of conservation science has been denigrated by similar Mannian climate fear mongering prompted by Mann’s schtick.
[“Defending” or “Denifying” the Hockey Stick? Surely not “Defunding” though. 8<) .mod]
To anyone who has worked for any length of time based on winning competitive grants or contracts from Federal agencies, it is no mystery why so much climate research comes to alarmist conclusions no matter what the data actually says. The key to winning a grant or contract is to propose work that 1) you have demonstrated capability to do and 2) addresses what the sponsor wants. Gauging what the sponsor wants and targeting those wants is perhaps the most important determinant of your proposal. Thankfully I have long been involved in this in another discipline, but just for fun I thought I would look at the NOAA Broad Area Announcement (BAA). BAA’s are a typical request vehicle for research or development proposals from Federal Agencies.
The NOAA BAA (and others) can be found at the grants.gov site via a search
http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html?keywords=noaa
and then clicking on the link to NOAA-NFA-NFAPO-2014-2003949
The BAA spells out what NOAA wants by stating the given assumptions up front:
“Projected future climate-related changes include increased global temperatures, melting sea ice and glaciers, rising sea levels, increased frequency of extreme precipitation events, acidification of the oceans, modifications of growing seasons, changes in storm frequency and intensity, air quality, alterations in species’ ranges and migration patterns, earlier snowmelt, increased drought, and altered river flow volumes. Impacts from these changes are regionally diverse, and affect numerous sectors related to water, energy, transportation, forestry, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, and human health. A changing climate will alter the distribution of water resources and exacerbate human impacts on fisheries and marine ecosystems, which will result in such problems as overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, changes in species distributions, and excess nutrients in coastal waters. Increased sea levels are expected to amplify the effects of other coastal hazards as ecosystem changes increase invasions of non-native species and decrease biodiversity. The direct impact of climate change on commerce, transportation, and the economy is evidenced by retreating sea ice in the Arctic, which allows the northward expansion of commercial fisheries and provides increased access for oil and gas development, commerce, and tourism.”
If one plans to put in a proposal, it better toe this line. No wonder so much research aims to identify alarming consequences of AGW, and does it no matter what.
Thanks FAH. that explains a lot!
FAH is correct. Though there are other concurrent manipulations going on.
Any CFO or Manager of Budget worth their salt keeps an eye out for the fashionable watch words. Just including the fashionable words or duplicating another group’s justification are a budget request’s quickest path to the trash bin.
Still, that only eliminates the sheer dross of the wish lists.
Departments often multiply requests into many requests with similar but not identical goals. After the dross is tossed, remaining requests still sum into tidy amounts that departments can then assign as desired. If they receive the funding.
Method:
Project budget cycles are universal and typically yearly even though projects can run for years.
When the proper time arrives, a budget call is issued and department staff begin to prepare their budget requests; requests that must be backed by a justification, schedule and expense details.
Somewhere in the background, the organization as a whole is working on the total expected available funding available for allocation.
This bucket of cash is not based on the total size of requests, at least immediately. When areas become hot or ‘in fashion’ and allocation sources want to increase funding, then the list of passed over projects and their requested funding becomes useful.
From the get go, funding allocations are dog, cat and bear fights. Biggest and most influential sponsors get more of the funds and they often drive the fashionable projects.
Budget allocations trickle down governmental levels until they reach a level where specific departmental functions receive specific dollar amounts.
A funding assignment can request that certain projects receive the bulk of the funding, but often the original amount requested is immense in comparison to the amount actually allocated.
Reducing requested amounts to available funding is easy. All it takes is a percentage slash. Unfortunately, most genuine projects have no chance of success on partial funds. Add in that virtually all project plans also require a capital budget plan and funds allocation. Capital (equipment, buildings) budget planning is usually prepared on a five year basis with yearly adjustments.
When capital funds are allocated, they are specific to financial line number.
The funding amounts received by the department is then allocated by the executive and his staff, with the detail grunt work performed by the budget department.
That executive may decide to allocate the funding in support of the hottest areas under their control.
Then there are the governmental departments that literally are given so much funding that they have cash to throw away. When an organization receives funding far in excess of requests and they lack sufficient staff to oversee subsequent allocations; think NSF, though multiple agencies have undergone recent massive rapid growth that they lack intelligent controls.
Almost every government agency that is either new, a merger, or undergone rapid growth in the last couple of decades is so flush with borrowed cash that they happily throw money at problems. Easily the worst way to run a country.
Who are the people who make or determine who get the grants. That’s the most important position to be in. If I could control the grants, I could turn this thing around.
I have also written proposals and gotten government grants. Yet I have seen many people on blogs deny that grant seeking creates any bias. Just try to get a grant to say climate change will be good for crops and trees!
From Eisenhower’s Farewell address (the military industrial complex speech) comes this tidbit of wisdom, more relevant today than 55 years ago:
“Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”
And the Mann was also an upside down data specialist as well. What an heroic figure for the delusional lefties and carpetbaggers.
Has anyone ever seen a hockey stick with an 18 year flat notch in it?
You have to turn it upside down to shoot a puck now. At least Tiljander series would finally be right-side up.
That 18 year pause would have been a drop of 0.6°C without the anthropogenic effect. So how come a 0.6deg:C drop in temperatures is unprecedented?
Dear Dr. T. Karl, do you mind if we dispense with formalities and I just call you Trofim ?
Did your powerplay get you to be second in line after this one ?
That is a thorough and well done review by Andy May of Mark Steyn’s book titled “A Disgrace To The Profession” (subtitled: ‘The World’s Scientists ~in their own words~ On Micheal E Mann, His Hockey Stick, And Their Damage To Science’). Thank you.
I received the book two weeks ago; it is a copy signed by Mark Steyn. : )
I have read it three times. The first time I read it with wide open attention. It struck me as providing very reasonable and sufficient evidence of a strong skeptic underpinning in the Climate Science PhD community; a strong PhD community that finds fundamentally false science dominating the works of Michael E Mann (of PSU). And it is just volume one!
Then I immediately reread the book with primary focus on identifying evidence and reasoning (presented by Steyn and the 100+ quoted PhDs) that Mann’s climate related work product is a necessary result of his political / social / economic biases. I found a significant intellectual thread in the book supporting the conclusion that political / social / economic bias predetermines the outcome Mann’s climate work product.
In my third read of the book I primarily focused on identifying evidence and reasoning that it is a non-rational element in Mann’s philosophy of science that causes his climate related work product to be necessarily false. I found a significant intellectual thread in the book supporting that there is an intellectually fatal element in Mann’s philosophy of science which causes his false climate related work products.
John
Oops! Here is an edited repost of my above comment with the blockquote command properly closed.
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That is a thorough and well done review by Andy May of Mark Steyn’s book titled “A Disgrace To The Profession” (subtitled: ‘The World’s Scientists ~in their own words~ On Micheal E Mann, His Hockey Stick, And Their Damage To Science’). Thank you.
I received the book two weeks ago; it is a copy signed by Mark Steyn. : )
I have read it three times. The first time I read it with wide open attention. It struck me as providing very reasonable and sufficient evidence of a strong skeptic underpinning in the Climate Science PhD community; a strong PhD community that finds fundamentally false science dominating the works of Michael E Mann (of PSU). And it is just volume one!
Then I immediately reread the book with primary focus on identifying evidence and reasoning (presented by Steyn and the 100+ quoted PhDs) that Mann’s climate related work product is a necessary result of his political / social / economic biases. I found a significant intellectual thread in the book supporting the conclusion that political / social / economic bias predetermines the outcome Mann’s climate work product.
In my third read of the book I primarily focused on identifying evidence and reasoning that it is a non-rational element in Mann’s philosophy of science that causes his climate related work product to be necessarily false. I found a significant intellectual thread in the book supporting that there is an intellectually fatal element in Mann’s philosophy of science which causes his false climate related work products.
John
I have finished reading my signed copy. This book will do more to break up this ugly blot on all science. I was relieved to see how large a group of scientists were outraged by this terrible science. I was asking myself why are most scientists silent about this disgraceful product and a host of other disgraceful output from activist scientists. The book gave me some relief. Having ‘outed’ so many scientists who apparently were keeping their criticism largely quiet, I believe this expose will encourage even greater numbers to come forward, not just on Mann’s rather obvious farcical work, but on the whole edifice of a science either contributing or silent on the egregious political activism of so many that is leading to a destruction of civilization. This book is exactly what is needed to set free the young scientists that Judith Curry is worrying about.
To all scientists caught in this bind by the tyranny of 97% of ALL academic and All government agencies and ALL scientific institutes and almost all ‘learned journals and media, this book provides and opportunity to stand up to this. A large enough number provides safety. Mark Steyn is one of those lone very brave knights who really does go around saving the planet from the groupthink destroyers of civilization and world prosperity. He will never receive adequate thanks for this. He is in the position of trying to save the Nile crocodile while it is trying to bite his head off. He is an inspiration to all.
I hope he writes a series of “Disgrace to the profession..” books on psychologists/psychiatrists (Lewandowsky and all those silent about it in the profession), sociologists that have long succumbed, politicians – probably not much can be done about, media – well they will switch horses when a critical mass is reached. Get his recent book but also buy his others if you want to see a knight at work.