Shock, awe. Untruncated and unspliced data used in a new paper from Briffa and Melvin at UEA restores the Medieval Warm Period while at the same time disappears Mann’s hockey stick. Here’s figure 5 that tells the story:

Figure 5. Temperature reconstructions created using the 650-tree (‘alltrw’ data) TRW chronology (a) and the 130 tree (‘S88G1112’ data) MXD chronology (b). Chronologies were created using two RCS curves and were regressed against the Bottenviken mean May–August monthly temperature over the period 1860 to 2006. The shaded areas show two standard errors (see SI15, available online, for details) plotted either side of the mean where standard errors were scaled to fit the temperature reconstruction. The TRW and MXD temperature reconstructions of (a) and (b) are compared in (c) after they were normalised over the common period 600 to 2008 and smoothed with a 10 year spline. The lower two panels compare the reconstructions using the TRW chronology (d) and MXD chronology (e) with the mean of May to August monthly temperature from Bottenviken over the period 1860 to 2006. (more…)

People who have been following the climate debate closely know that one of the most controversial and key elements of the controversy is the so-called “hockey stick” — a graph of supposed global temperature over the past centuries that ostensibly shows a dramatic increase in average temperature in the last century or so (the upward swoop of the graph at that point is the business end of the stick, with regard to the puck). It vaulted its inventor, Michael Mann of Penn State University, to climate stardom, with associated acclaim and government grants, when he first presented it in the late ’90s. It was the visual basis of much of the hysteria in recent years, from Al Gore’s Oscar-winning crockumentary to bogus reports from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Unfortunately for those promoting the theory (and the potentially economically catastrophic policy recommendations supposedly supported by it), recent events indicate that the last basis of scientific support for the hockey stick may be crumbling. But to understand this, a little background is necessary. (more…)

Source:  Wash Post

P.Wm. climate change case takes center stage

By Tom Jackman

Now that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation into climate research has been tossed out of court, a similar case in Prince William County targeting the same ex-University of Virginia scientist moves into the spotlight. And this case, seeking some 12,000 emails sent and received by scientist Michael E. Mann, using the Freedom of Information Act, appears to have a far greater chance of success.

Climate researcher Michael E. Mann said his shared interest, with U.Va., in his e-mails means they can be released to him, but not to climate change skeptics. (Tom Jackman – The Washington Post) That’s because U.Va. apparently has already given the 12,000 e-mails to Mann himself, though he left Charlottesville years ago. The American Tradition Institute, the conservative group hoping to show that climate change scientists like Mann manipulated their data, argues that U.Va. can’t give the e-mails to one person and not another. By giving the emails to Mann, the university has waived any exemptions they’re claiming to the state Freedom of Information Act, ATI says.

You gave ‘em to him, you gotta give ‘em to us, basically. And a number of well-informed FOIA experts in Virginia say that ATI is right. (more…)

by Marlo Lewis

“Climate scientist Peter Gleick has acknowledged that he was the person who convinced the Heartland Institute to hand over the contents of its January Board package, authenticating the documents beyond a doubt and further exposing the disinformation campaign Heartland has pursued in the last week, trying to discredit the information,” writes DeSmog Blog in a post titled “Whistleblower Authenticates Heartland Documents” (Feb. 20, 2012).

Gleick is indeed the culprit, but he is not a “whistleblower” because to be a candidate for that honorable title, he’d have to be a current or former employee. Gleick acknowledges that he, an outside critic of the organization, solicited and received Heartland documents under false pretenses, an action he describes as a ”serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics.” (more…)

Email 2743

Meanwhile, I suspect you’ve both seen the latest attack against his Yamal work by McIntyre. Gavin and I (having consulted also w/ Malcolm) are wondering what to make of this, and what sort of response—if any—is necessary and appropriate. So far, we’ve simply deleted all of the attempts by McIntyre and his minions to draw attention to this at RealClimate.

Flashback: Michael “robust debate” Mann on the opportunity to robustly debate Steve McIntyre: “Phil, I would immediately delete anything you receive from this fraud…I would NOT RESPOND to this guy. As you know, only bad things can come of that”

[Mann] Good editorial on #CRUHack2 in The Economist: emails actually show science working as it should (robust debate, etc.)

… simply for publishing a paper with a different view than his. Mann also fantasizes about action by the National Academy of Sciences!

From the Climategate 2.0 collection, Penn State hokey stick tyrant Michael Mann e-mails Tom Wigley complaining about two Soon-Balunias studies — and their association with Harvard:

… But the [Soon-Balunias] papers certainly got a lot more mileage than they should have. The fact that the forces of disinformation were able to get that much mileage out of these two awful papers written by those clowns should remain a real cause for concern. Their ability to repeatedly co-opt the Harvard news office remains a real problem. Nobody I’ve talked to at Harvard is happy about this, and there’s been talk of action on the part of various of the faculty, but nobody seems willing or able to mount enough of an effort to get anything done about this. Apparently there was a threat of a lawsuit against Harvard last time folks there tried to do something about Baliunas, and so they may have lost their nerve. But I know our Harvard colleagues are not happy about continually having their institutional name dragged through the mud. If someone has close ties w/any individuals there who might be in a position to actually get some action taken on this, I’d highly encourage pursuing this. Re, an NAS committee–this is an interesting idea. But I wonder if a committee on [Soon-Baliunas] would be overkill, perhaps giving these fools just the stage that they’re looking for. [Emphasis added]

The e-mail exchange is below. (more…)

It happened again.  I woke up to find a link from FOIA.org on a thread.   Thousands of emails unlocked with 220,000 more hidden behind a password.  Despite the smaller size of the Air Vent due to my lack of time, there were twenty five downloads before I saw it once.  As before, there are some  very nice quotes and clarifications from the consensus.  Below is a guest post in the form of a readme file from the FOIA.org group. – Jeff

/// FOIA 2011 — Background and Context ///

“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”

“Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”

“One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.

“Poverty is a death sentence.”

“Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”

Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on
hiding the decline.

This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches.  A few
remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets.

The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons.  We are not planning
to publicly release the passphrase.

We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics such
as… (more…)

Michael Krüger at our friends Science Skeptical brings us this jewel of German dissent. Professor Dr. rer. nat. Richard Dronskowski at Aachen University brings loud applause from what appears to be a lecture hall full of his students as he slams the AGW science and the hucksters behind it.

At the 1.10 mark he calls Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth “inconsistent” and reminds us how scientists “warned of cooling” in 1970s. At the 2.25 mark he brings up Michael Mann’s hockey stick chart:

No chart has been so falsified as the hockey stick chart. It’s an embarrassment for the IPCC.” (more…)