By now, anyone with even a passing fancy to the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate has heard of the infamous hockey stick graph. This was a graph, originally created by Michael Mann that showed that man was cooking the planet. It was the basis for virtually all the proof that the AGW proponents put forward that we were doomed unless we dumped all technology and reverted to prehistoric days.
The problem with the graph is that it is a lie. At best it was a product of flawed science. At worse, it is outright deception and fraud.
The original graph came from Bristlecone Pine Trees. But the method of research was suspect and Steve McIntyre wanted to check the statistical science of it. For 3 years he attempted to get the raw data before he was successful. After demonstrating that the deck was stacked and that the graph had no basis in reality: “The United States National Academy of Sciences announced that, bristlecone pines should no more be used as proof of climate change”.(1)
Not satisfied with this embarrassment, the IPCC then went to one of its own, Keith Briffa who came up with the same graph, but with different trees. As with Michael Mann before him, Briffa refused to release his raw data until he made a mistake. He published in a journal that required he make it public. And McIntyre then was able to analyze the data for that graph.
And the results were surprising. It was determined that Briffa had stacked the deck on the data and used only 3 trees in Siberia for his studies. Before McIntyre could embarrass Briffa however, he had switched to a new source of data – 10 trees in the Yamal Peninsula of Siberia. But McIntyre and now a new partner, Ross McKitrick, were able to get the data and analyze it as well. Their first reaction was that 10 was far too small a sample to be statistically significant. But beyond that, they found that when the sample of trees were increased to 34, the graph changed dramatically!
What the larger sampled showed was no global warming and definitely no hockey stick! But the fraud was not over.
The IPCC decided to go to Finland and enlist the aid of Finnish Climatologists. They extracted mud samples from a lake, Korttajärvi. The researchers then took this data back to the IPCC, and lo and behold, the data was turned upside down! Literally!
While the science of AGW is still very much in debate (much to the consternation of Al Gore, Pachauri and their ilk), one thing is undeniable. The basic science, illuminated by the East Anglia Climategate emails and source code, that is the underpinning of the AGW Political movement is a fraud. And until the scientists of Climatology start cleaning up their house, there is no credibility in anything they say. Simply put the key players – as demonstrated by the CRU emails – have lied, distorted, practiced bad science and committed outright fraud to advance a position that is not yet supported by science or the evidence used to come to their conclusions.