The Inventor of the Global Warming Hockey Stick Doubles Down
January 21, 2014
Professor Michael Mann, the inventor of the Hockeystick temperature graph, had a contentious editorial essay in the January 17th
issue of the New York Times. [The Hockeystick graph purports to show
that temperatures of the last thousand years declined steadily -- until
the 20th century, when there was a sudden large rise.]
I
am using the word "inventor" on purpose, since the Hockeystick is a
manufactured item and does not correspond to well-established historic
reality. It does not show the generally beneficial Medieval Warm Period
(MWP) at around 1000 AD, or the calamitous Little Ice Age (LIA) between
about 1400 and 1800. In the absence of any thermometers during most of
this period, the Hockeystick is based on an analysis of so-called proxy
data, mostly tree rings, from before 1000 AD to 1980, where the proxy
temperature suddenly stops and a rapidly rising thermometer record is
joined on.
Since
its publication in 1998 and 1999, the hockeystick graph has had a
turbulent history. It was adopted by the IPCC (UN-Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change) in its 3rd Assessment Report (2001) to support the claim of a major anthropogenic global warming (AGW) during the 20th
century. Since then, the IPCC has distanced itself from the graph,
which has been completely discredited. It not disagrees not only with
much historic evidence that shows a MWP and LIA, but also with other
analyses of proxy data. Most of the criticism has come from the work
of two Canadian statisticians, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who
have uncovered a misuse of data, a biased calibration procedure, and
fundamental errors in the statistical methods.
McKitrick,
an econometrician at Guelph University in Canada, has a pungent comment
on Mann's op-ed, which was titled "If you see something, say
something."
I have added my own comment as follows: "OK, I want to say something too: I see an
ideologue, desperately trying to support a hypothesis that's been
falsified by observations. While the majority of climate alarmists are
trying to discover a physical reason that might just save the AGW
hypothesis, Mann simply ignores the 'inconvenient truth' that the global
climate has not warmed significantly for at least the past 15 years --
while emissions of greenhouse gases have surged globally."
Of course, this is not the first time that "hide the decline" Mike has done this. Remember his "Nature
trick" -- so much admired by his 'Climategate team' mates? [For those
who don't remember the 2009 Climategate scandal: It consisted of a leak
of some thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia,
involving mainly Michael Mann and several of his English colleagues,
documenting their completely unethical attempts to suppress any contrary
opinions and publications from climate skeptics by misusing the
peer-review process and by pressuring editors of scientific journals --
unfortunately, with some success.]
We don't quite know yet what the "Nature
trick" refers to -- until we get Michael Mann to tell us why he has
refused to reveal his never-published post-1980 proxy data. We may have
to wait until we have him on the witness stand and under oath. But I
strongly suspect that it has to do with absence of any temperature
increase after 1980; its publication would have created a conflict with
the reported (and problematic) thermometer data and with the assertion
by the IPCC that humans are responsible for such a temperature rise.
In
actuality, we now have adequate proxy data from other sources, most
particularly from Fredrick Ljungqvist and David Anderson. Their
separate publications agree that there has been little if any
temperature rise since about 1940! However, there was a real
temperature increase between 1920 and 1940, which can be seen also in
the various proxy as well as thermometer data.
Anti-Science
Michael
Mann saw something he didn't like in the Senate testimony (Jan 16,
2014) of fiercely independent climate scientist and blogger, Georgia
Tech professor Judith Curry; so he decided to say something in his NYT
op-ed. He forgot that often it is better to say nothing than to accuse
Curry of peddling anti-science.
Curry has lost no time in taking Mann's challenge and turning the tables on him:
Curry's final message to Mann:
War on Coal
It
is interesting that Mann now plays the role of the victim in purported
persecution by powerful interests, darkly identified as the fossil-fuel
industry. Actually, the reverse may be the case. Mann has become a
strong proponent of emission controls on carbon dioxide, which fits in
very nicely with the ongoing War on Coal conducted by the EPA and the
White House -- and with the editorial policies of the New York Times --
coal being the most prolific source of CO2.
It
is ironic that while coal use is increasing rapidly in China and India,
it is also increasing in Europe where governments have been anti-CO2
fanatics in the past but have decided to stop nuclear power, which emits
no CO2 whatsoever.
In
the United States, requirements are being set up to capture CO2 from
smoke stacks of power plants and store it underground. Carbon Capture
and Sequestration is a difficult and costly undertaking, and has never
been demonstrated on a commercial scale. There have even been calls for
sucking CO2 out of the global atmosphere, which sounds like an
impossible task -- and in any case, would be very, very expensive.
And
to what purpose? As pointed out many times, CO2 is beneficial for
agriculture. As a natural fertilizer, it accelerates the growth of
crops. Czech physicist Lubos Motl has calculated that if it were indeed
possible to reduce CO2 levels to their pre-industrial value, global
agriculture would suffer a strong decline and billions of people would
starve to death.
But
perhaps this level of population control is what the climate fanatics
are really after. They have always maintained that the Earth suffers
from over-population and that the number
of people needs to be reduced to protect natural values -- a truly
misanthropic scheme. In 1974, the Club of Rome group published a
detailed study, predicting that a billion people would die of
starvation, beginning in the 1980s and peaking in 2010. One of the
proponents of this thesis is now the White House science adviser.
S.
Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and
director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His
specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing
and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather
Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National
Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is a senior fellow of
the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute. He co-authored
the NY Times best-seller Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 years.
In 2007, he founded and has since chaired the NIPCC (Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change), which has released several
scientific reports [See www.NIPCCreport.org]. For recent writings, see http://www.americanthinker.com/s_fred_singer/ and also Google Scholar.
issue of the New York Times. [The Hockeystick graph purports to show
that temperatures of the last thousand years declined steadily -- until
the 20th century, when there was a sudden large rise.]
I
am using the word "inventor" on purpose, since the Hockeystick is a
manufactured item and does not correspond to well-established historic
reality. It does not show the generally beneficial Medieval Warm Period
(MWP) at around 1000 AD, or the calamitous Little Ice Age (LIA) between
about 1400 and 1800. In the absence of any thermometers during most of
this period, the Hockeystick is based on an analysis of so-called proxy
data, mostly tree rings, from before 1000 AD to 1980, where the proxy
temperature suddenly stops and a rapidly rising thermometer record is
joined on.
Sinceits publication in 1998 and 1999, the hockeystick graph has had a
turbulent history. It was adopted by the IPCC (UN-Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change) in its 3rd Assessment Report (2001) to support the claim of a major anthropogenic global warming (AGW) during the 20th
century. Since then, the IPCC has distanced itself from the graph,
which has been completely discredited. It not disagrees not only with
much historic evidence that shows a MWP and LIA, but also with other
analyses of proxy data. Most of the criticism has come from the work
of two Canadian statisticians, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who
have uncovered a misuse of data, a biased calibration procedure, and
fundamental errors in the statistical methods.
McKitrick,
an econometrician at Guelph University in Canada, has a pungent comment
on Mann's op-ed, which was titled "If you see something, say
something."
"OK, I see a second-rate scientist carrying on like a jackass and making a public nuisance of himself."
I have added my own comment as follows: "OK, I want to say something too: I see an
ideologue, desperately trying to support a hypothesis that's been
falsified by observations. While the majority of climate alarmists are
trying to discover a physical reason that might just save the AGW
hypothesis, Mann simply ignores the 'inconvenient truth' that the global
climate has not warmed significantly for at least the past 15 years --
while emissions of greenhouse gases have surged globally."
Of course, this is not the first time that "hide the decline" Mike has done this. Remember his "Nature
trick" -- so much admired by his 'Climategate team' mates? [For those
who don't remember the 2009 Climategate scandal: It consisted of a leak
of some thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia,
involving mainly Michael Mann and several of his English colleagues,
documenting their completely unethical attempts to suppress any contrary
opinions and publications from climate skeptics by misusing the
peer-review process and by pressuring editors of scientific journals --
unfortunately, with some success.]
We don't quite know yet what the "Nature
trick" refers to -- until we get Michael Mann to tell us why he has
refused to reveal his never-published post-1980 proxy data. We may have
to wait until we have him on the witness stand and under oath. But I
strongly suspect that it has to do with absence of any temperature
increase after 1980; its publication would have created a conflict with
the reported (and problematic) thermometer data and with the assertion
by the IPCC that humans are responsible for such a temperature rise.
In
actuality, we now have adequate proxy data from other sources, most
particularly from Fredrick Ljungqvist and David Anderson. Their
separate publications agree that there has been little if any
temperature rise since about 1940! However, there was a real
temperature increase between 1920 and 1940, which can be seen also in
the various proxy as well as thermometer data.
Anti-Science
Michael
Mann saw something he didn't like in the Senate testimony (Jan 16,
2014) of fiercely independent climate scientist and blogger, Georgia
Tech professor Judith Curry; so he decided to say something in his NYT
op-ed. He forgot that often it is better to say nothing than to accuse
Curry of peddling anti-science.
Curry has lost no time in taking Mann's challenge and turning the tables on him:
"Since
you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being
'anti-science,' I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any
statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my
conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide.
During
the Hearing, Senator Whitehouse asked me a question about why people
refer to me as a 'contrarian.' I said something like the following:
Skepticism is one of the norms of science. We build
confidence in our theories as they are able to withstand skeptical
challenges. If instead, scientists defend their theories by calling
their opponents names, well that is a sign that their theories are in
trouble.
Curry's final message to Mann:
"If you want to avoid yourself being labeled as 'anti-science', I suggest that you are obligated to respond to my challenge."
War on Coal
It
is interesting that Mann now plays the role of the victim in purported
persecution by powerful interests, darkly identified as the fossil-fuel
industry. Actually, the reverse may be the case. Mann has become a
strong proponent of emission controls on carbon dioxide, which fits in
very nicely with the ongoing War on Coal conducted by the EPA and the
White House -- and with the editorial policies of the New York Times --
coal being the most prolific source of CO2.
It
is ironic that while coal use is increasing rapidly in China and India,
it is also increasing in Europe where governments have been anti-CO2
fanatics in the past but have decided to stop nuclear power, which emits
no CO2 whatsoever.
In
the United States, requirements are being set up to capture CO2 from
smoke stacks of power plants and store it underground. Carbon Capture
and Sequestration is a difficult and costly undertaking, and has never
been demonstrated on a commercial scale. There have even been calls for
sucking CO2 out of the global atmosphere, which sounds like an
impossible task -- and in any case, would be very, very expensive.
And
to what purpose? As pointed out many times, CO2 is beneficial for
agriculture. As a natural fertilizer, it accelerates the growth of
crops. Czech physicist Lubos Motl has calculated that if it were indeed
possible to reduce CO2 levels to their pre-industrial value, global
agriculture would suffer a strong decline and billions of people would
starve to death.
But
perhaps this level of population control is what the climate fanatics
are really after. They have always maintained that the Earth suffers
from over-population and that the number
of people needs to be reduced to protect natural values -- a truly
misanthropic scheme. In 1974, the Club of Rome group published a
detailed study, predicting that a billion people would die of
starvation, beginning in the 1980s and peaking in 2010. One of the
proponents of this thesis is now the White House science adviser.
S.
Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and
director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His
specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing
and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather
Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National
Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is a senior fellow of
the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute. He co-authored
the NY Times best-seller Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 years.
In 2007, he founded and has since chaired the NIPCC (Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change), which has released several
scientific reports [See www.NIPCCreport.org]. For recent writings, see http://www.americanthinker.com/s_fred_singer/ and also Google Scholar.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/the_inventor_of_the_global_warming_hockey_stick_doubles_down.html#ixzz2r16zxusF
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