Comments on: National Post: Re-visiting the Stick

By: NancyN

NancyN — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:37:30 +0000

FYI, my daughter is enrolled in “Environmental Geology” [Fall 2009 class]. The book used is Geology and the Environment 5th ed. by Bernard Pipkin et al, copyright 2008. On page 333, the “hockey stick” is used in support of global warming.

By: W.NICHOLSON ,brisbane

W.NICHOLSON ,brisbane — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:46:22 +0000

As a non scientist I would be pleased to get the Global Surface Atmospheres annual temperature year by year from 1990 to 2009. Who would have these?
When 7 day weather forcasts are often wrong I am lead to wonder the accuracy of predictions for 10 years or 100 years. Bill.N

By: Ruiz Canberra Builders

Ruiz Canberra Builders — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:54:25 +0000

I agree with 22 S.Sternhell comments and point of view. Chris

By: S.Sternhell

S.Sternhell — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 08:32:12 +0000

Dear Steve,
As a professional scientist and an academic of very long standing, I have always been conscious of the central role of integrity in all scientific research. Science is full of mistakes, misinterpretations, incompleteness and even plain stupidity. However, deliberately misleading work is as rare as it is reprehensible. I have noticed before that the global warming alarmists use data selectively or brush inconvenient facts (including basic spectroscopy) aside, but you seem to have produced the best piece of evidence so far for something more serious. In my opinion, the continuing use of the hockey stick after your demolition of it is even worse that its original introduction, which might have just possibly been an honest mistake. Just as bad, has been the disappearance of the hockey stick from bits of publicity (without affecting the conclusions) even though it formed a central plank of the alarmist’s case. How about revisiting the various “X hottest years since Y” claims – they strike me as prone to selective data mining.

By: TCO

TCO — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:44:39 +0000

Maybe one good effect you all have had, has been more attention to methodology and sharing of code. Even as people battle to find fault in your work, they are digging into the issue of how choices in method affect answer and they are seeing your code is available and sharing their code in return.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 04:28:32 +0000

Ben – as you see, I’ve inserted the text as I sent it to National Post. Steve

By: Ben Simonton

Ben Simonton — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 12:55:05 +0000

Steve, the links to “Re-Visiting the Stick” don’t work. Please provide a good link as I would like to point some friends to it.

Best regards, Ben

By: T J Olson

T J Olson — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:11:45 +0000

A robust set of comments about this valuable restatement from readers.
More alarming, of course, is how cirticism has been marginalized in a way that would have the late Karl Popper rolling in his grave! How have we come to this?

By: Doug L

Doug L — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:02:58 +0000

Re: #16
Ross McKitrick,

Thanks for the pointers to the figures. The hockey stick on the last page of the summary for policy makers does indeed show it used as a baseline for the projections. So perhaps it gives the projections a head start, also the trajectory at the end matches the trajectory of the projections. This gives the illusion of supporting the projections, so in effect giving our runner not only a head start, but a running start.

Still, I would expect them to swear on a stack of Bibles that their projections don’t depend on the hockey stick. They’ve got all kinds of wiggle room here. They seem to have painted themselves into a corner, but it’s a big corner they can stand in for possibly decades, in my completely amaturish opinion.

By: Ross McKitrick

Ross McKitrick — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:17:06 +0000

Re #10: You can see a graphical example of using the hockey stick as a baseline for global warming projections by going to the Summary of the IPCC Synthesis Report at http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/un/syreng/spm.pdf. Scroll down to page 34. Re #13, the appearances are Figures 2-20 and 2-21 in Chapter 2 of the Working Group 1 Assessment Report, Figure 1b in the Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers, Figure 5 in the Technical Summary, and Figures 2-3 and 9-1B in the Synthesis Report.