From:         "Smith, G. (Geoff) (SG)" <Geoff.Smith@AKZONOBEL-CHEMICALS.COM>
To:           ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ITRDBFOR] Joe Barton's hockey stick hearing coming up
Date:         Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:36:57 +0800
Reply-to:     ITRDB Dendrochronology Forum <ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>

Dr. Solomon,

It is not clear what makes the Wegman Committee Report in your opinion a
"new low". In scientific study, one part is clearly physical (growth
rates of trees, IR absorption, etc.) and a separate part is the
statistical treatment of the data.

Dr. Wegman's report is clearly focused on the latter. He is well
qualified to analyze statistical methods, as chair of the National
Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical
Statistics, and a board member of the American Statistical Association.

The conclusion of the Committee headed by Dr. Wegman is clear - the
statistical methods of MBH 98/99 cannot be relied upon to support the
claim that the 90's were the hottest decade of the past millennium. If
one wants to argue with Dr. Wegman's conclusion, it will be necessary to
show how he has misunderstood or misrepresented the statistical methods
used in those studies.

Obviously this does not prove that the 90's were not the hottest decade
of the past millennium, only that the MBH 98/99 analyses cannot be used
to support that claim, nothing more and nothing less.

Anyone interested in paleoclimatology in general, and dendrochronology
in particular, should read the recent NAS report and the Wegman
Committee Report (or in fact anyone interested in the use of statistics
in climatology).

Your last comment seems to reflect a belief that it is scurrilous to
"question unquestioned science". Wouldn't there seem to be a long
honored history of exactly this type of action, both before and after
Einstein? Or perhaps I'm misinterpreting your remarks.


Geoff Smith
Singapore

-----Original Message-----
From: ITRDB Dendrochronology Forum
[mailto:ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Allen M. Solomon
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 6:53 AM
To: ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: Joe Barton's hockey stick hearing coming up

You also may want to look at a new "report" prepared for Barton by a
group 
of statisticians regarding the hockey stick - this is going to be the
focus 
of the hearing, in order to advertise it. It seems (to me) to be a new
low 
in politics to have a "congressional report" generated specifically to 
question unquestioned science.
-Al
Allen M Solomon, Ph.D.
National Program Leader, Global Change Research
USDA Forest Service
4th Floor, RPC
1601 North Kent St
Arlington VA 22209
allensolomon@fs.fed.us
703 605 5251



------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

E&ENews PM
Friday, July 14, 2006

CLIMATE: New House report sets stage for another 'hockey stick' brawl
Lauren Morello, E&ENews PM reporter
Flawed statistics underlie the controversial "hockey stick" climate 
analysis, according to a report released today by an ad hoc panel of 
scientists assembled by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.


The report contradicts a recent National Academy of Sciences study that 
found the hockey stick analysis -- which concluded Earth has been warmer

over the last millennium than at any other point -- is largely correct.

Published in 1998 by the journal Nature, the hockey stick reconstructs
past 
global average temperatures using data from corals, tree rings, ice
cores 
and bore holes deep within the Earth -- the first to draw on multiple 
sources of "proxy data" to sketch a picture of past climate.

The study includes a graph that shows Earth's average temperature
increasing 
sharply during the 20th century, with an upward curve that resembles the

blade of a hockey stick. Often cited as evidence that human emissions
are 
the dominant cause of rising global temperatures, the graph became 
controversial after it appeared in a 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate 
Change report.

But the House Committee's ad hoc panel says the hockey stick's authors 
relied on statistics that are pre-disposed to produce the hockey-stick 
shape.

Claims by the hockey stick paper's authors of unprecedented global
warming 
during the 20th century "cannot be supported by [the] analysis," the
panel 
concluded.

The Energy and Commerce Committee -- whose chairman, Rep. Joe Barton 
(R-Texas), is a leading Capitol Hill critic of the hockey-stick study --
has 
scheduled a hearing next week on the ad hoc panel's conclusions.

In June 2005, Barton and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
Chairman 
Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) launched a probe into scientific and financial
records 
of climatologists who created the graph -- Michael Mann of Pennsylvania 
State University, Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts and

Malcolm Hughes of the University of Arizona (Greenwire, July 18, 2005).

That prompted a rare show of public infighting between Barton and
Whitfield 
and House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), who
asked 
the National Academy of Sciences to examine the validity of the hockey
stick 
and similar climate reconstructions (Greenwire, June 23).

Click here to view the House panel report.

Click here to view the National Academy of Sciences report.

Click here to view the hockey stick paper [Nature subscription
required].


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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David M. Lawrence" <dave@FUZZO.COM>
To: <ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 3:13 PM
Subject: Joe Barton's hockey stick hearing coming up


>I thought I'd pass this on since tree-ring data and their use in
> reconstructing past climates are central to the controversy.  I wonder
if
> any attention will be paid to the recently released NRC report on
climate
> over the past 2,000 years, or in a forthcoming paper in Climate Change

> that
> finds the method used to obtain the hockey stick reasonably robust.
>
> Dave
>
> -- here's my note posted to two journalism lists --
>
> It looks like Joe Barton will get all the climate uncertainty sorted
out 
> on
> Wednesday, June 19, at 10 a.m.  He will be holding a hearing called
> "Questions Surrounding the 'Hockey Stick' Temperature Studies: 
> Implications
> for Climate Change Assessments."  The hearing will focus on the
notorious
> "hockey stick" graph indicating that the temperatures in the latter
part 
> of
> the 20th century were higher than at any time in the last millennium.
>
> I doubt there will be more light than heat, but the hearing will be
> interesting to watch, if anything.  The hearing can be watched live
via 
> the
> Internet.
>
> For more information:
>
> http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/07142006_1989.htm
>
>
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/07192006hearing1987/hearing
.htm
>
> Dave
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> David M. Lawrence        | Home:  (804) 559-9786
> 7471 Brook Way Court     | Fax:   (804) 559-9787
> Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: dave@fuzzo.com
> USA                      | http:  http://fuzzo.com
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> "We have met the enemy and he is us."  -- Pogo
>
> "No trespassing
> 4/17 of a haiku"  --  Richard Brautigan
> 

