THE DUTCH KNOCK THE "HOCKEY STICK" TOO

A major European science magazine published in The Netherlands recently had a look at the now well-known demonstration by McIntyre and McKitrick which showed that the original global warming paper produced a "hockey stick" picture of earth's temperature history only by way of mathematical shenanigans. The magazine concluded that the hockey stick story (implying recent global warming) is indeed no more than a mathematical artifact. The article has now been translated into English. See here. The translation was published in Canada's "National Post". I reproduce the opening paragraphs below:

Few people dispute that the earth is getting warmer, but there are people -- so-called "climate skeptics" -- who question whether the change is historically unique and whether it is the result of human activity. These skeptics are generally outsiders, reviled by "true" climate researchers.

On the one hand, Michael Mann, the first author of the two noted hockey-stick papers (in Nature in 1998 and in Geophysical Research Letters in 1999), is the unofficial king of climate research. In 2002, Scientific American included him as one of the top 50 visionaries in science. On the other hand, the two Canadian skeptics are outsiders: Ross McKitrick is a professor of economics and Stephen McIntyre is a mineral exploration consultant -- which Mann likes to call a conflict of interest.

Climate skeptics are most prolific on the Internet, a platform for novices, the scatterbrained and the experienced alike. Not surprisingly, the climate researchers whom we consulted (predominantly Dutch) presumed the work of the two Canadians to be unconvincing. We at Natuurwetenschap & Techniek were initially skeptical about these skeptics as well. However, McIntyre and McKitrick have recently had an article accepted by Geophysical Research Letters -- the same journal that published Mann's 1999 article. This, together with the positive responses of the referees to that article, quickly brought us around.

Even Geophysical Research Letters, an eminent scientific journal, now acknowledges a serious problem with the prevailing climate reconstruction by Mann and his colleagues. This undercuts both Mann's supposed proof that human activity has been responsible for the warming of the earth's atmosphere in the 20th century and the ability to place confidence in the findings and recommendations of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The political implication is a serious undermining of the Kyoto Protocol with its worldwide agreements on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.




CANADIANS CHALLENGE THE HOCKEY STICK TOO

Below is part of the introduction to the above translation of the Dutch article:

The hockey-stick image has appeared in countless documents and hundreds of speeches. The opening graphic in the recently-published Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report reproduces the Mann chart as the main springboard to hundreds of pages on climate risks in the Arctic. It is also the core justification for the Kyoto Protocol, which comes into effect on Feb. 16.

Until now, criticisms of the hockey stick have been dismissed as fringe reports from marginal global warming skeptics. Today, however, the critical work of two Canadian researchers, Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at Guelph University, and Toronto consultant Stephen McIntyre, will be published by Geophysical Research Letters, the prestigious journal that published one of the early versions of Michael Mann's 1,000-year tracking of Northern Hemisphere temperatures,

Publication in Geophysical Research sets McIntyre and McKitrick's analysis and conclusions in direct opposition to the Mann research. Their criticism can no longer be dismissed as if it were untested research posted on obscure Web sites by crank outsiders. Their work is now a full challenge to the dominant theme of the entire climate and global warming movement.

The story of McIntyre and McKitrick's research, and their attempt to recreate the hockey stick, is the subject of the special two-part commentary that begins today. Written by Marcel Crok, an editor with the Dutch science magazine Natuurwetenschap & Techniek, the article chronicles the mystery behind the unraveling of the hockey stick.

It is a story filled with intrigue, conflict and amazing facts about how science is made, especially climate science. It's also a story about the inner workings of science journals and, especially, the UN panel on climate change that is at the heart of climate politics and the economics of the Kyoto Protocol. Above all, the story threatens to rock the foundations of climate science.

Rob van Dorland of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute believes the McIntyre and McKitrick paper in Geophysical Research justifies an investigation by the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Van Dorland is a lead author on the next IPCC report due in 2007. "It is strange," he said, "that the climate reconstruction of Mann has passed both peer review rounds of the IPCC without anyone ever really having checked it. I think this issue will be on the agenda of the next IPCC meeting in Peking in May."

Other scientists around the world have yet to weigh in on the Geophysical Research paper and another work just published by McIntyre and McKitrick in another science magazine, Environment and Energy. In that paper, posted yesterday at www.multi-science.co.uk, McIntyre and McKitrick also raise important questions about the methods and practices of scientists and science journals whose material becomes the basis for public policy.




NEW CHALLENGES COMING

Here is the personal website of Stephen McIntyre, the courageous Canadian scientist who first blew the whistle on the fake "hockey stick". He announces that more publications on the story are forthcoming. The global warming story will be kept up now mainly because a lot of people don't want to lose face.

The commonest response of Michael "hockeystick" Mann to the demolition of his dodgy work is truly pathetic. Rather than answer the criticisms, he abuses his critics -- saying that they are in the pay of "business" etc. -- the classic ad hominem fallacy. He is not an honest man.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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