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January 30, 2005

The Warmest in 1000 Years? Revisiting the Hockey Stick

Is the "hockey stick" shaped temperature curve the result of, "Gee, if I make this assumption or use that methodology, I'll pre-dispose my results to come out to what I think they should be?"

A science article that has been accepted by Geophysical Research Letters casts serious doubt on the oft-cited claim that global temperatures are warmer now than they have been anytime in the last 1,000 years.

Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick examined the methodology that led Mann et al. (1998) to publish in the popular science journal Nature the famous "hockey stick" shaped temperature curve, which was a centerpiece of the Third Assessment Report of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001.

The hockey stick curve showed a gradual cooling since around 1400 A.D. (the hockey stick handle) then a sharp warming since about 1900 (the blade of the stick). This was taken as proof that the major climatic event of the last 1,000 years was the influence of humans in the 20th century.

Posted by Hyscience at January 30, 2005 10:05 PM

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