What the trees said
Relying in part on the evidence of tree rings, the IPCC says that man-made global warming has risen to dramatic heights in the last century. (There were no reliable thermometers before 1724 or temperature readings so tree rings were used as proxies.) In the chart below, the green line follows temperatures obtained from reading tree rings. You'll notice the green line looks a little odd.
The famous climate hockey stick
Image: Daily Mail
The problem is that the evidence of tree rings did not support global warming in the 20th century. Since it didn't, the scientists, whose political paymasters insist we will turn our lives upside down to fight carbon, sawed up the evidence. You can see that in the graphic above when you try to follow the green tree ring evidence line and it disappears.
One of the people to shine a light on these oddities is Canadian Steve McIntyre. He is a father and a grandfather, a mathematician and statistician, who has worked in the mineral exploration industry and as an analyst for the Canadian government. In his work, McIntyre found raw data and the careful verification of data to be essential. He has been frustrated for years by NASA and the Climate Research Unit in Anglia, which have made big climate claims but refused to share the hard data on which the claims are based. This kind of stonewalling makes certain types of people more stubborn. McIntyre is one of those people.
He also dislikes using data to beat people over the head with a hockey stick. With Ross McKitrick he co-authored a paper that suggested Michael Mann's famous "hockey stick", which gave graphic support to a dramatic rise in global temperatures, was 'an artifact of flawed calculations and serious data defects'. Last month scientists learned from leaked CRU emails that the tree ring data did not support the rise.
It seems to us that the whole issue ought to be revisited by independent scientists whose grant funding is not based on their findings.
Trees, when they speak, can be hard to hear.
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Comments (3)
I do think we ought listen more closely to Trees and more often. They are older and wiser than we.
Death Bredon | December 15, 2009 02:17 PM
Posted on December 15, 2009 14:17
"I do think we ought listen more closely to Trees and more often."
Yes.
Cat | December 15, 2009 02:36 PM
Posted on December 15, 2009 14:36
The best thing that could happen to the climate fraudsters would be a visit from an army of Ents.
jlh | December 15, 2009 05:45 PM
Posted on December 15, 2009 17:45