June 28, 2005
Squeaking wheel? Meet Grease!
Two wonderful links regarding the Mann, et. al. 'paper' relating the abrupt and recent rise in global temperatures. And the great curiosity of the United States Committee on Energy and Commerce. Here is the Hockey Stick graph that started it all overlaid with some corrected data:
Click for full-size Image
Hockey Stick Graph Creators IcedThere are a few more line items from the E&C and then, Paul closes:
Steve Verdon over at OTB gives us good news. It appears that Mann et. al. have drawn the attention of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
They have a few questions to ask.1) Your curriculum vitae, including, but not limited to, a list of all studies relating to climate change research for which you were an author or co-author and the source of funding for those studies.
2) List all financial support you have received related to your research, including, but not limited to, all private, state, and federal assistance, grants, contracts (including subgrantsor subcontracts), or other financial awards or honoraria.
3) Regarding all such work involving federal grants or funding support under which you were a recipient of funding or principal investigator, provide all agreements relating to those underlying grants or funding, including, but not limited to, any provisions, adjustments, or exceptions made in the agreements relating to the dissemination and sharing of research results.
I'm guessing the creators of the global warming hockey stick are --shall we say-- pucked.Next up is Back40 at Crumb Trail who goes in for the long and deep view:
Drop TrouTime to say goodbye to an outdated trope? Time to read some history books? 900's and 1480's-1560's would be a great place to start. Welcome to this planet -- the only constant is change... Posted by DaveH at June 28, 2005 11:41 PM
The US House Committee on Energy is snoufling around a hornet's nest.As reported briefly yesterday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has requested information from Michael Mann (and collaborators) and the heads of IPCC and NSF. The tone of the letters places House E&C essentially in ethics investigation mode...The bone of contention is Michael Mann's infamous hockey stick and his surly refusals to cooperate with critics and release his data and methods so that they can be analyzed independently. There are other concerns about oversight and review since Mann both did the study and wrote the report that reviewed it for the IPCC. Congress is legitimately involved since they did some funding.Whatever climatology scientists think of this concern, and whatever IPCC insiders know about its legitimacy, this is absolutely an appropriate concern of Congress, which should be doing a lot more oversight into conflict of interest . . . The ultimate consumer of IPCC information is Congress and other major decision-making bodies. If Congress hears that there are questions about the information that they have been given, especially concerning such a politically touchy issue, it is their prerogative to investigate.However, the usual suspects are in full shriek mode claiming abuse of power and political motivations. It's not abuse, it's congress doing its job for a change. If anything the complaint should be that they aren't doing such things well enough or often enough. Some of the objections seem pretty silly and not surpisingly, politically motivated. What a surprise, each side has political motives.