Latest News Michael Mann first of climate change scientists to be investigated
| 29 November 2009
The fallout from the Climategate event continues as one of its primary participants, Dr. Michael Mann, is to be investigated by his employer, Penn State University. Among the more than one thousand emails released on the Internet, Mann featured prominently in many of them oftentimes making rather controversial comments.
Mann serves as the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and has long been one of the more controversial figures in the debate about manmade climate change. He is the author of the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was used by Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” but later was proven to be inaccurate.
In a statement (below), the university heralded Mann’s accomplishments calling him “a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty.” It said however that due to the questions raised by the release of the emails, it was going to investigate Mann’s research. “The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised,” the statement said.
The university cited a report from the National Academy of Sciences that determined his reconstruction of data was “sound.” As website Watts Up With That pointed out though, the release did not make mention of a report from Dr. Edward Wegman that provided a different opinion. Wegman’s report said, “Mann et al., misused certain statistical methods in their studies, which inappropriately produce hockey stick shapes in the temperature history. Wegman’s analysis concludes that Mann’s work cannot support claim that the1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium. “
The contents of the email and document archive have caused a furor with many calling for investigations into the scientists whose emails were released as well as the very science behind the anthropogenic global warming theory.
Emails from Mann discuss his desire to withhold information from dissenters saying in one message “don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.” In another he similarly asked the scientists not to share information saying, “So please don't pass this along to others without checking w/ me first. This is the sort of "dirty laundry" one doesn't want to fall into the hands of those who might potentially try to distort things.”
Mann seemed very preoccupied with ensuring no research from skeptics was included in scientific journals. He wrote that, “skeptics appear to have staged a 'coup' at "Climate Research"” and he felt they should discourage anyone from submitting research to the publication. He also was worried about Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) because they had dared to publish skeptical works saying, “I’m not sure that GRL can be seen as an honest broker in these debates anymore.”
Mann and a number of other scientists released a study last week seeking to explain the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, two events that many believe show climate variability has always existed and man is not the primary driver behind them. In the study Mann demonstrates that the two events were regional in nature, not global. Mann discussed the Medieval Warm Period in one of the released emails in an interesting conversation saying that “it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”.”
Complete statement from Penn State University:
University Reviewing Recent Reports on Climate Information
Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals. In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.
In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised.
Comments
Now I don't know if this research money has any effect on what the University concludes about Mann's contributions - but the money certainly had a favorable influence on the appointment the University gave to him.
I would be surprised if the University concluded that Mann's "efforts" were not consistent with scrupulous integrity.
People associated with Mann, such as Jim Hansen, would be very surprised as well, and they would not be reserved about expressing their opinions, either.
Mike Mann contrived his junk science.
I'm not the only one who knows that Mike Mann contrived junk and bogus results.
Mike Mann knows it as well, and he just happens to be arrogant enough not to care - he blames anybody who articulates anything that Mike Mann already knows to be the truth
I figured this out the very first time I saw something that Mann wrote on the "hockey stick," as I already knew of MWP and the Little Ice Age, which his graph dishonestly obscures.
Try as they might, they will NOT be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together, they will not be able to explain this criminal activity away.
So who are the deniers now???
I am looking outside and see a foot of snow, not lush lawn. AND the past 2-1/2 yrs have been a bit on the cool side, not just here but globally.
and that Ice that is allegedly melting in the arctic? Being reformed. To be sure, there are some REAL environmental problems, but global warming is not one of them. Your attack here just shows that the climate religionists can not abide "heresy" no matter how well grounded in fact.
Context? Entire SERIES of conversations provide plenty. I hope you are correct and Penn State will act justly. The fraud needs to end, and justice needs to be served. Again, Climategate is real. Who are the deniers now?
One of the trashiest alarmist propaganda articles supporting global warming appeared in the Washington Post yesterday.
www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2010012800041.html
The Washington Post is the lobbyist wing of the AGW crowd.
RSS feed for comments to this post.