re: #68 eachus

There are three separate facts here which have to be kept separate:

1) Is/was the Hockey Stick wrong? Big time. I don’t think some people realize how many peer reviewed papers in fields as diverse as history, biology and astrophysics would have to be withdrawn if the hockey stick was considered settled science. Why? The hockey stick obliterates the MWP (medieval warm period) and the Little Ice Age.

2) Is global warming caused by human emissions of CO2? Probably not, but (lots) more research is needed. Don’t get me wrong. I think that increased CO2 levels are killing people, but not thorough global warming. As for global warming, it exists. But the interaction between CO2, cloud cover, the oceans, etc. is still not understood. If it was, I would have access to a working global climate model. Instead I have access to lots of models, none of which has correctly predicted anything other than by chance.

3) Was Michael Mann’s behavior ethical? Well it certainly didn’t violate academic ethics. When it became clear that his paper contained errors, he withdrew it. It is not ethically wrong to make errors, and it is certainly less wrong to publish a summary paper which includes incorrect data. So why is LGF publishing data that Michael Mann retracted?

(1) The hockey stick graph was substantially correct. The MWP was not, at the time, recognized as having been worldwide, so it didn’t feature as strongly as it should have. It’s quite possible in science to get this or that detail wrong without being wrong on the big picture.

(2) All the climate models have correctly predicted that it will generally get warmer. You just move the goalposts by insisting on a fine grain detail that’s beyond our reach.

And CO2 is so the cause. This is almost trivial. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. More CO2, more greenhouse. Really!

(3) Most of Mann’s work on climate stands, unretracted and with no reason for it to ever be retracted. That’s because he’s a good scientist. He gets things right, most of the time if not absolutely all the time. He’s a leader in the field. Did he retract a paper? Are you sure of that? I hadn’t heard.

The basic thrust of the whole body of scientific work on this subject vindicates his main point: it’s warmer now than in the relevant past, and it’s getting warmer fast. How to describe that in one quick metaphor?

Hockey stick.