muso wrote on Sep 25
th, 2013 at 7:24pm:
I can see that the denialist blogosphere is huge, so I'm not surprised that the layman tends to go with the easier to understand arguments.
If you read the story behind Mann's study it becomes apparent that he was up against the establishment of the day, but was still vidicated by at least 16 subsequent independant studies.
You need to read through the account of the whole fiasco to understand this.
Any minor issues in the statistical treatment had no effect on the final data.
Apart from that, even if there was a global event that was warmer than the temperatures of 1999, it wouldn't be significant, because the underlying cause of the current warming is well established.
Which part do you particularly disagree with?
1. Do you disagree that the increase in CO2 is due to fossil fuel burning, cement production and change of land use?
2. Do you disagree with the fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas?
3. Do you disagree with the climate sensitivity? In other words, do you believe that the moisture feedback, albino, cloud feedback etc combines is negative or low?
If you have an honest position on that, I'm sure that you won't mind sharing it with us.
I have read the entire account and it is quite clear that you have not. His statistical analysis has been utterly debunked by no less that the worlds leading expert in principal component analysis. the MWP and little ice age were completely absent despite being proven experiences in history. the argument that they occurred only regionally is absurd especially when you consider that the regions where they apparently didn't occur all have no recorded history!
Do you realise that Mann's 2000 version hockey stick graph was considered to be so bad that one of his previous major supporters and climate scientist researcher wanted his name taken off the report because it was so appalling? Most of the supposed 'supporting reconstructions' used the same data and the same methodolology?? where is the surprise that they came to the same wrong answer?
Do you know that, contrary to government rules and established research doctrine, that Mann refused (and still refuses) to release his data or his methodology and it has all had to be reverse-engineered and in some cases obtained via sideways means? Do you know that one of Manns sidekiicks actually proudly admitted to a senate enquiry that 'cherry-picking of data' was an acceptable scientific method?
But I ask you again to explain why the MWP and Little Ice age - which are indisputable events - do not appear on his graph? If you can believe that conveniently inhabited parts of the world could be hotter for 300 years but the rest of the uninhabited/primitive worlds was not then frankly, you will believe anything. That is quite simply, not credible. But it is at least consistent with the IPCC claim that their climate models were 100% accurate... as long as you take out all the stuff we didn't know, couldn't predict or got wrong.