The Dog Ate My Global Warming Homework - Part II

The other day I posted a link to a National Review piece about apparently missing climate data. This is the data used to justify all manner of government interventions in the global economy, from Kyoto to Cap & Trade in the name of The Environment ^TM. Of course it's much less about stopping climate change (impossible) than it is about control. One of the people who has done a lot, if not most of, the work in exposing the junk science behind much of the laws on global warming, climate change or whatever we're calling it today is Ross McKitrick who, along with Stephen McIntyre have shown quite conclusively that the famous "hockey stick" graph is faulty. McKitrick has an article in the National Post explaining just what is wrong with the data. Of course you should read it all for yourself but here is an excerpt:

"Steve and I showed that the mathematics behind the Mann Hockey Stick were badly flawed, such that its shape was determined by suspect bristlecone tree ring data. Controversies quickly piled up: Two expert panels involving the U.S. National Academy of Sciences were asked to investigate, the U.S. Congress held a hearing, and the media followed the story around the world.

The expert reports upheld all of our criticisms of the Mann Hockey Stick, both of the mathematics and of its reliance on flawed bristlecone pine data. One of the panels, however, argued that while the Mann Hockey Stick itself was flawed, a series of other studies published since 1998 had similar shapes, thus providing support for the view that the late 20th century is unusually warm. The IPCC also made this argument in its 2007 report. But the second expert panel, led by statistician Edward Wegman, pointed out that the other studies are not independent. They are written by the same small circle
of authors, only the names are in different orders, and they reuse the same few data climate proxy series over and over."