Today, the 12th of February, 2005, is a momentous day. Your and Ross’s article “Hockey Sticks, Principal Components, and Spurious Significance” has been published on line at GRL (unfortunately only available to members). To those of us who have observing the increasing politicization of science, particularly in climate issues, this is a welcome reminder that real science has fundamental force. Congratulations on your excellent analysis and perserverance in bringing the story to the world. Do worry that only 1600+ people have seen your blog (love it by the way). You are causing a revolution which will have positive effects around the world. All the best from Singapore (where it’s hot all the time).

I can’t see how the work can turn out as an investment for me in economic terms.

My friends are impressed with my new notoriety but wonder when I’m going to go back to “work” (although in terms of effort, I’m working harder than I have for quite a while.)

For example, when Kevin Trenberth, head of the IPCC’s panel on hurricanes, recently suggested that there exists a link between climate change and the wave of powerful hurricanes last year, he was immediately challenged. Christopher Landsea, a hurricane expert at America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC panel, arguing that Dr Trenberth’s comments went beyond what the peer-reviewed science could justify. He wrote a public letter complaining that: “because of Dr Trenberth’s pronouncements, the IPCC process has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost.” Dr Trenberth retorts that “politics is very strong in what is going on, but it is all coming from Landsea and colleagues. He is linked to the sceptics.”

Translation from Weasel to English: "Dr Landsea is a heretic and is to be shunned with all the other infidels" This is very, very depressing for science.

Dear Steve,

as a person from the commercial sector, you may appreciate the fact that according to blogshares.com, I am a 75% owner of your blog! Can you click the link above? Just to make it clear: it’s a virtual stock market with blog shares. You may want to convince other people to include the links to your blog. I’m not sure whether your friends at realclimate.org will add a link, but they definitely should!

I am happy that the media write about you – and write in a way that looks pretty fair to me. What you’re doing must definitely be fun, you’re doing it nicely – but I also hope that eventually your work will be seen as a good investment not only for the humankind, but also for you!

All the best
Lubos

I’ve been tempted to post on several occasions but not done so – but since you insist

I’ve followed the hockey stick debate for a couple of months now and as a mathematical modeller and statistician it has been quite interesting. I keep meaning to do my own independent check using my personal tool of choice (MATLAB) but just haven’t had the time recently!

One thing I would say is that I have been impressed by the manner of your debate, which seems to be focussed on the technical issues. One of the points of note is that your site consistently links to the sites that express the opposing viewpoint, such as realclimate, which means readers can see both sides of the argument. RealClimate.org has a LOT of links throughout the text, but a quick check finds that they are almost all links to sites that share the view of the authors, which colours the whole thing in a very one-sided way. Even on the pages that respond to your work, the most they will do is give a reference, and then just the paper one (not a URL), which comes across as a little petty, and achieves little in a world with search engines in it.

In the meantime, congratulations on getting your paper published, and keep up the good work!