Just A Durn Minute

NYTimes (07.18.05):

"A public dispute has flared between two Republican House committee chairmen over an inquiry one of them began last month into the integrity of an influential study of global temperature trends. The study, published in 1998 and 1999, meshed data from modern thermometers and evidence of past warmth or cold, like variations in tree rings. The result was a curve showing little variation for nearly 1,000 years and then a sharp upward hook in recent decades." Two G.O.P. Lawmakers Spar Over Climate Study

The deal is that back in the late '90s, three guys, "Michael E. Mann, the climatologist who led the research and has just become the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University; Raymond S. Bradley, a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts; and Malcolm K. Hughes, a tree-ring expert at the University of Arizona", did a bunch of research and published a study with a graph showing this "sharp upward hook." Two Canadians, "Steven McIntyre, an amateur statistician and mining consultant, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph", have "published academic papers and opinion articles challenging the study's methods." Based on the Canadians assertions, House Committee on Energy and Commerce chair Joe L. Barton (R - TX6), initiated the inquiry. The House Science Committee chair, Sherwood Boehlert (R - NY24), thinks Barton is full of it, and is grandstanding. Maybe, but think of the hearings. A mining consultant/amateur statistician and an economist going toe to toe with two of the world's top climatologists and one of the world's top tree-ring experts over a climatological study based on tree-ring analyses. We're thinking that would be pretty damned funny. Go read their bios. You'll know what we mean. McKitrick is a "Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute in Vancouver B.C.", "an economically conservative Canadian think tank." Naysayers "have noted the Fraser Institute's reports, studies and surveys are usually not subject to standard academic peer review or the scholarly method. The accuracy and reliability of the information they produce is therefore often questionable." "The Institute also dedicates considerable energy and funding to actively promote their findings and their agenda to broadcast and print media, a practice not followed by most research foundations or in the research work of university departments." Huh. Imagine that.