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{{Short description|2010 book by Andrew Montford}}
{{Infobox Book
{{pp-semi-indef}}
{{Infobox book
| name = The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science | name = The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science
| title_orig = | title_orig =
| translator = | translator =
| image = ] | image = The hockey stick illusion.jpg
| caption =
| image_caption =
| author = ] | author = ]
| illustrator = | illustrator =
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}} }}


'''''The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science''''' is a book written by ] and published by ] in 2010. Montford, an ] and science ] who publishes a ] which is sceptical of ],<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /> provides his analysis of the history of the "]" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years and the controversy surrounding the research which produced the graph. The book describes the history of the graph from its inception to the beginning of the ]. '''''The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science''''' is a book written by ] and published by ] in 2010, which promotes ].<ref name="Hewitt" /><ref name="Joyner" />


Montford, an ] and science ] who publishes a ] called 'Bishop Hill',<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /><ref>{{cite web|title=House of Commons Science and Technology Committee - Memorandum submitted by Andrew Montford (CRU 36) - The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Session 2009-2010 - Science and Technology Committee|website=UK Parliament|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/387we38.htm|access-date=23 May 2020}}</ref> writes about the "]" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years. The book has been criticized for its inaccuracies.
Since its release, the book has received a mixture of positive and negative reviews; '']'' referred to it as "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn",<ref name="Ward_2010-08-19_Guardian" /> while '']'' described it as a "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing"<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /> and '']'' described it as "Montford's book, if inevitably technical, expertly recounts a remarkable scientific detective story".<ref name="Booker_2010-01-30_Telegraph" />


==Background== ==Background==
According to Montford, in 2005 he followed a link from a British political blog to the ] website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of ]'s "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.<ref name="Preface">{{cite book|last=Montford|first=Andrew|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion|year=2010|publisher=Stacey International|page=13|chapter=1|isbn=1906768358}}</ref> According to Montford, in 2005 he followed a link from a British political blog to the ] website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of Caspar Ammann's "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p13" />


Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it ''Caspar and the Jesus paper''. Montford states that word of his paper caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his paper as a source in Misplaced Pages. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his paper into book form.<ref name="Preface"/> Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it ''Caspar and the Jesus paper''.<ref name="Montford_2008_Bishophill" /> Montford states that word of his article caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his article as a source in Misplaced Pages. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his article into book form.<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p13" />


==Synopsis== ==Synopsis==
] Figure 7.1.c (red) based on Lamb 1965 showing central England temperatures; central England temperatures to 2007 shown from Jones et al. 2009 (green dashed line).<ref name="Jones 09">P. D. Jones et al., The Holocene 19,1 (2009) pp. 3–49, High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects Appendix A</ref> The high medieval temperatures contrast with the "hockey stick" MBH99 40 year average (blue, uncertainties omitted) and Moberg et al. 2005 low frequency signal (black).]]
]4 data from 1850 to 2013.]]
''The Hockey Stick Illusion'' first outlines a brief ] with particular emphasis on the ] in 1990, with its inclusion of a schematic based on central England temperatures which Montford describes as a representation of common knowledge at that time. He then argues that a need to overturn this "well-embedded paradigm" was met by the 1998 publication by ], ] and ]' of their "]" in '']''.<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p30" /> The book describes how ] first became interested in the graph in 2002 and the difficulties he found in replicating the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) using available datasets, and further data which Mann gave him on request.<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p57" /> It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and ] in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the ] and ] and hearings held on the graph before the ]. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.<!-- Passive voice, could be rewritten --><ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p151-401" />


The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls ]. Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in ''The Hockey Stick Illusion.'' Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the ] process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other ]' published works.<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p402-449" />
''The Hockey Stick Illusion'' relates the story of ], ] and ]' "hockey stick graph" starting from when it first appeared in '']''.<ref name="The Paper">{{cite book|last=Montford|first=Andrew|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion|year=2010|publisher=Stacey International|page=30|chapter=1|isbn=1906768358}}</ref> The book describes how ] first became interested in the graph and his subsequent struggle to replicate the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) and the refusal of Mann to release his source code and filtered dataset.<ref name="McIntyre">{{cite book|last=Montford|first=Andrew|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion|year=2010|publisher=Stacey International|page=57|chapter=3|isbn=1906768358}}</ref> It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and ] in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the ] and ] and hearings held on the graph before the ]. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.<!-- Passive voice, could be rewritten --><ref>{{cite book|last=Montford|first=Andrew|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion|year=2010|publisher=Stacey International|page=402|chapter=6–11|isbn=1906768358}}</ref>

The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls ]. Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in ''The Hockey Stick Illusion.'' Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the ] process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other ]' published works.<ref>{{cite book|last=Montford|first=Andrew|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion|year=2010|publisher=Stacey International|page=402|chapter=17|isbn=1906768358}}</ref>


==Reception== ==Reception==


Montford had set out to provide a more detailed explanation than the primers ] had written describing the case he and McIntyre had produced against the MBH climate reconstructions,{{sfn|Montford|2010|p=13}} and when McKitrick contributed to a 2014 compilation published by the ] think-tank, he opened with a sentence saying the "best place to start when learning about the hockey stick is Andrew Montford's superb book".<ref></ref><ref name="IPA">{{cite book|author1=John Roskam|author2=Alan J. Moran|title=Climate Change: The Facts 2014|url=https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/books/climate-change-facts-2014|year=2014|publisher=Institute of Public Affairs|isbn=978-0-986398-30-8}}</ref> ] discussed it in '']'',<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /> and in '']'' magazine said the book was "written with grace and flair" and deserved to win prizes, while conceding that he had financial interests in coal mining.<ref name="prospect"/>
] has wrote "This is probably the best book about the Hockey Stick. And while some of the detail may be overwhelming to the innocent reader, it does present all of the relevant facts as far as I can tell" <ref>http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010091511627/life-and-science/energy-and-environment/book-review-the-hockey-stick-illusion-climategate-and-the-corruption-of-science.html</ref>

Writing in the ]'s magazine ''],'' Joe Brannan wrote that "Andrew Montford tells this detective story in exhilarating style. He has assembled an impressive case that the consensus view on recent climate history started as poor science and was corrupted when climate scientists became embroiled in IPCC politics." <ref>Brannan, Joe, "", ''Geoscientist'', August 2010.</ref> He ends his review with "Montford’s book ends on what is perhaps an inevitable low note, because the Hockey Team has not conceded that its temperature reconstructions are seriously flawed. However, if The Hockey Stick Illusion provokes a truly independent review of the evidence it will have served its purpose". <ref name="Joe Brannan">{{cite journal|last=Brannan|first=Joe|date=August 2010|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion - Climategate and the corruption of science|journal=Geoscientist|publisher=THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,|volume=20|issue=8|page=9|quote=In 1998 a graph, which was to become famous as the ‘Hockey Stick’, made its debut in the pages of the prestigious journal Nature.|url=http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/shared/pdfs/Geoscientist/Download%20PDF%20copy%20of%20Geoscientist%2020.08%20August%202010.pdf}}</ref>

Writing in ''],'' ] criticised what he called "the serious inaccuracies in book". Describing the book as an "entertaining conspiracy yarn", he highlighted what he perceived to be various omissions and selective quotations in Montford's account. He characterised the elided material as "awkward truths" that Montford had neglected to tell the reader about and commented "it would perhaps be wise to treat with some scepticism Montford's assessment of the validity of the inquiries into the hacked email messages."<ref name="Ward_2010-08-19_Guardian" /> Following a complaint by Montford, ''The Guardian'' amended Ward's review, explaining they did not intend to imply that Montford had deliberately published information known to be false,<ref name="Ward_2010-08-25_Guardian" /> apologized, and added a link to Montford's response.<ref name="Montford_2010-08-19_BH"> by ] at his Bishop Hill blog, Aug 19, 2010</ref> In a separate column in the ''Guardian'', Montford responded to Ward's review by stating that Ward's criticism of the book was flawed and, in Montford's opinion, was motivated by the impending release of an investigative report written by Montford for the ] on the Climategate affair.<ref>Montford, Andrew, ",", '']'', 10 September 2010, retrieved on 11 September 2010.</ref>

John Dawson in '']'' magazine recommended the book. Dawson stated that the book is, "a textbook of tree ring analysis, a code-breaking adventure, an intriguing detective story, an exposé of a scientific and political travesty, and the tale of a herculean struggle between a self-funded sceptic and a publicly funded hydra, all presented in the measured style of an analytical treatise."<ref>Dawson, John, "", '']'', July 29, 2010, Volume LIV Number 7-8.</ref>

], writing in the '']'', criticised the book as only being able to "cut the mustard with tabloid intellectuals but not with most scientists." Noting that Montford has not made any relevant scientific contributions, he commented that the book "might serve a psychological need in those who can't face their own complicity in climate change, but at the end of the day it's exactly what it says on the box: a write-up of somebody else's blog" and criticised it as "at worst, ... a yapping terrier worrying the bull; it cripples action, potentially costing lives and livelihoods."<ref name="McIntosh">{{cite journal|last=McIntosh|first=Alastair|title=Reviews - The Hockey Stick Illusion|journal=Scottish Review of Books|volume=6|issue=3|year=2010|url=http://www.scottishreviewofbooks.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=357:reviews&catid=36:volume-6-issue-3-2010&Itemid=85}}</ref>

], in '']'', recommended the book three times, once as a "full account" of the ]'s use of the hockey stick graph in its ] and ] Assessment Reports,<ref name="Booker_2010-02-27_Telegraph" /> and later describing it as "expertly recount a remarkable scientific detective story".<ref name="Booker_2010-01-30_Telegraph" /> He added that the book gives a "full account" of the hockey stick controversy.<ref name="Booker_2010-07-04_Telegraph" />

Richard Joyner, a Professor at ], described ''The Hockey Stick Illusion'' as "a McCarthyite book that uses the full range of smear tactics to peddle climate change denial." In a review published by '']'', he highlighted what he regarded as "serious flaws in Montford’s conspiracy theory", criticising what he called Montford's "use of innuendo" in constantly questioning "the actions and motives of those with whom he disagrees". Overall, Joyner concluded, "Montford’s book is not an honest contribution" to the debate on whether global warming is man-made or not.<ref>{{cite web|last=Joyner|first=Richard|title=Mean-spirited scepticism|url=http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/08/mean-spirited-scepticism-montford-hockey-stic/|date=2010-08-23}}</ref>


Other reviewers criticized the book as providing cover for individuals opposing ]. ] in '']'' described how "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn" presented arguments based on "glaring inaccuracies".<ref name="Ward_2010-08-25_Guardian" /> In '']'', Ward said Montford's "incredible yarn is based on a misleading and one-sided version of events, littered with inaccuracies".<ref name="Ward GeoS">{{cite news|url=http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page8394.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101007062942/http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page8394.html|archive-date=2010-10-07|title=Not so jolly hockey stick|last=Ward|first=Bob|date=October 2010|work=]|access-date=8 April 2011}}</ref> Nick Hewitt in '']'' outlined the basic physics of climate change, and said that, unable to dispute this, ], "(or sceptics as they are disingenuously described in this book) have made sustained attempts to discredit climate scientists and the way they work", concluding that "Readers of ''Chemistry World'' will have far better things to do than read this pedantic book."<ref name="Hewitt">{{citation|last=Hewitt|first=Nick|url=http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2010/September/Reviews/ClimateChangeScepticism.asp| title=The hockey stick illusion: climategate and the corruption of science|journal=Chemistry World|year=2010|volume=7|issue=9}}</ref> Richard Joyner, writing in '']'', described it as "a McCarthyite book that uses the full range of smear tactics to peddle climate change denial."<ref name="Joyner">{{cite web|last=Joyner|first=Richard|title=Mean-spirited scepticism|url=http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/08/mean-spirited-scepticism-montford-hockey-stic/|date=2010-08-23}}</ref>
] in '']'' likened the book to a detective story and "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing."<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /> Ridley added that it was, in his opinion, "written with grace and flair" and "deserves to win prizes."<ref name="prospect"/>


==See also== ==See also==
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*] *]
*] *]
*]
*] *]
*]


== References == == References ==
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<!-- order by Author_date_publisher--> <!-- order by Author_date_publisher-->
<ref name="Montford_2008_Bishophill">{{Harvnb|Montford|2008}}</ref>


<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p13">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|p= 13<!--|loc= chapter 1-->}}</ref>
<ref name="Booker_2010-01-30_Telegraph">{{cite news

| url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113582/Amazongate-new-evidence-of-the-IPCCs-failures.html
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p30">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 19–30<!--|loc= chapter 1-->}}</ref>
| title=Amazongate: new evidence of the IPCC's failures

| last=Booker
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p57">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 57–87<!--|loc= chapter 3-->}}</ref>
| first=Christopher

| date=2010-01-30
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p151-401">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 151–401<!--|loc= chapter 6-11-->}}</ref>
| publisher=]

| accessdate= 2010-05-14
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p402-449">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 402–49<!--|loc= chapter 17-->}}</ref>
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5sHQhQ0IN

| archivedate = 2010-08-26
<ref name="prospect">{{cite news
| quote = Montford's book, if inevitably technical, expertly recounts a remarkable scientific detective story.
| url = http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-case-against-the-hockey-stick/
| date = 2010-03-10
| title = The case against the hockey stick
| author = Matt Ridley
| author-link = Matt Ridley
| work = ] (])
| access-date = 2010-04-03
}}</ref> }}</ref>

<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator">{{cite news
|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/2010/02/the-global-warming-guerrillas/
|title=The global warming guerrillas
|author = Matt Ridley
|author-link = Matt Ridley
|date=2010-02-03
|publisher=] (])
|access-date=2017-01-08
}}</ref>

<ref name="Ward_2010-08-25_Guardian">{{cite news
| url = https://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| title = Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?
| author = Bob Ward
| author-link = Bob Ward (communications director)
| work = ]
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100825121029/http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| archive-date = 2010-08-25
| url-status = live
| access-date = 2010-08-19
| quote = ''This article was amended on 20 August 2010 following a complaint from Andrew Montford to make it clear that we did not mean to imply that Andrew Montford deliberately published false information in order to support the arguments made in his book. We apologise if such a false impression was given. ''
| location=London
| date=2010-08-19}}</ref>

<!--
Here are some currently unused sources

<ref name="Ward_2010-08-19_Guardian"> {{cite news
| url = https://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| title = Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?
| author = Bob Ward
| author-link = Bob Ward
| work = ]
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100825121029/http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| archive-date = 2010-08-25
| url-status = live
| access-date = 2010-08-19
| quote = Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn reaches two apparently devastating conclusions about the work of climate scientists, partly based on his analysis of the hacked email messages.
| location=London
| date=2010-08-19}}</ref>

<ref name="postscript_2010-03-25_THE">{{cite news
|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=410938&c=1
|title=Heated discussions
|last=Montford
|first=Andrew
|date=2010-03-25
|work=Times Higher Education
|access-date=26 April 2010
}}</ref>

<ref name="Robbins_2010-04-02_Courier">{{cite news
| title=Climate of Change
| author=Bruce Robbins
| date=2010-04-02
| work=]
}}</ref>


<ref name="Booker_2010-02-27_Telegraph">{{cite news <ref name="Booker_2010-02-27_Telegraph">{{cite news
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| date=2010-02-27 | date=2010-02-27
| title =A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC | title =A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC
| author=] | author=Christopher Booker
| author-link=Christopher Booker
| publisher=www.telegraph.co.uk | publisher=www.telegraph.co.uk
| accessdate= 2010-04-03 | access-date= 2010-04-03
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100523101234/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5sHRm8vhl
| archivedate = 2010-08-26 | archive-date = 2010-05-23
| url-status=live
}}</ref>
| location=London}}</ref>

<ref name="Booker_2010-07-04_Telegraph">{{cite news
| url=http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/sunday-telegraph-the-london-uk/mi_8064/is_20100704/kidnap-sponsored-state/ai_n54318813/
| date=2010-07-04
| title =Kidnap - as sponsored by the state
| author=]
| publisher=]
| page=31
| accessdate=2010-07-14
}}</ref>


<ref name="Fisher_2010_JofEL">{{Cite journal <ref name="Fisher_2010_JofEL">{{Cite journal
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| coauthors= Pasky Pascual and Wendy Wagner | coauthors= Pasky Pascual and Wendy Wagner
| title = Understanding Environmental Models in Their Legal and Regulatory Context | title = Understanding Environmental Models in Their Legal and Regulatory Context
| journal = ], ], ] | journal = Journal of Environmental Law
| volume = 22 | volume = 22
| issue = 2 | issue = 2
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| year = 2010 | year = 2010
| url = http://jel.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/2/251 | url = http://jel.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/2/251
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100807174246/http://jel.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/2/251
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5rFIPyTmx
| archivedate = 2010-07-15 | archive-date = 2010-08-07
| url-status = live
| doi = 10.1093/jel/eqq012 | doi = 10.1093/jel/eqq012
| quote = 1.1 The Prevalence of Models in Environmental Regulation In the policy sphere many of these disputes have been in relation to policy-catalyst models. This is not surprising. As such models are establishing the premises for potential state action, it is obvious they will be controversial with different actors arguing for and against such action.36 Moreover, these disputes will also involve a range of public and private institutions as the models in question are derived from a range of sources.37 Notes 37 A W Montford, The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science (Stacey International, London 2010).
| quote = 1.1 The Prevalence of Models in Environmental Regulation


In the policy sphere many of these disputes have been in relation to policy-catalyst models. This is not
surprising. As such models are establishing the premises for potential state action, it is obvious they will be
controversial with different actors arguing for and against such action.36 Moreover, these disputes will
also involve a range of public and private institutions as the models in question are derived from a range of
sources.37


Notes


37 A W Montford, The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science (Stacey International, London 2010).
}}</ref>

<ref name="Foster_2010-07-09_FP">Foster, Peter, "", '']'', July 9, 2010.</ref>

<ref name="Gilder_2010-02-25_discoverynews">{{cite news
| url=http://www.discoverynews.org/2010/02/gilder_reviews_hockey_stick_il032261.php
| date = 2010-02-25
| title=George Gilder Hails "The Hockey Stick Illusion" on the Science Scandal of Global Warming
| author = ]
| publisher=]
| accessdate=2010-02-25
| archiveurl =
| archivedate =
| quote = In this story, the Columbo figure is Steve McIntyre, a Canadian mining consultant, and A.W. Montford's book tells the gripping and suspenseful details of McIntyre's pursuit of the self-denominated "hockey team" led by Michael Mann, who wrote the key chapters on his own work for the IPCC, and ], who maintains the temperature record used by the IPCC to document the "Hockey Stick" claiming allegedly unprecedented and anomalous anthropogenic global warming in the Twentieth Century while denying that any comparable or greater warming occurred in the Medieval period.
}}</ref> }}</ref>


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| month = 05 | month = 05
| url = http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf | url = http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100705000455/http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27939/1/HartwellPaper_English_version.pdf
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5rFHmwWwi
| archivedate = 2010-07-15 | url-status = live
| archive-date = 2010-07-05
}}</ref> }}</ref>

<ref name="prospect">{{cite news
| url = http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-case-against-the-hockey-stick/
| date = 2010-03-10
| title = The case against the hockey stick
| author = ]
| work = ] (])
| accessdate = 2010-04-03
}}</ref>

<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator">{{cite news
|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/politics/all/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml
|title=The global warming guerrillas
|author = ]
|date=2010-02-03
|publisher=] (])
|accessdate=2010-04-09
}}</ref>

<ref name="Robbins_2010-04-02_Courier">{{cite news
| title=Climate of Change
| author=Bruce Robbins
| date=2010-04-02
| work=]
}}</ref>

<ref name="Ward_2010-08-19_Guardian"> {{cite news
| url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| title = Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?
| author = ]
| work = ]
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5sESwSkX3
| archivedate = 2010-08-25
| accessdate = 2010-08-19
| quote = Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn reaches two apparently devastating conclusions about the work of climate scientists, partly based on his analysis of the hacked email messages.
}}</ref>

<ref name="Ward_2010-08-25_Guardian"> {{cite news
| url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sceptics-mislead-public
| title = Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?
| author = ]
| work = ]
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5sHNPBO1d
| archivedate = 2010-08-26
| accessdate = 2010-08-19
| quote = ''This article was amended on 20 August 2010 following a complaint from Andrew Montford to make it clear that we did not mean to imply that Andrew Montford deliberately published false information in order to support the arguments made in his book. We apologise if such a false impression was given. ''
}}</ref>

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==Further reading== ==Bibliography and further reading==
*{{cite book *{{cite book
| ref=Booker2009
|last= Booker
|first= Christopher | last= Booker
|title=] | first= Christopher
| title=]
|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd | publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
|year=2009 | year=2009
|isbn=1441110526 | isbn=978-1-4411-1052-7
}} }}
*{{cite web * {{cite web
| last = Montford | last = Montford
| first = Andrew | first = Andrew
Line 240: Line 204:
| title=Caspar and the Jesus paper | title=Caspar and the Jesus paper
| date=2008-08-11 | date=2008-08-11
| accessdate=2010-04-01 | access-date=2010-04-01
}}
* {{cite book
| last=Montford
| first=Andrew
| title=The Hockey Stick Illusion
| year=2010
| publisher=Stacey International
| pages=482
| isbn=978-1-906768-35-5
}} }}
* {{cite journal |author=PAGES 2k Consortium| title=A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era - Scientific Data | journal=Scientific Data | date=11 July 2017 | volume=4 | issue=1 | page=170088 | doi=10.1038/sdata.2017.88 | pmid=28696409 | pmc=5505119}}


==External links== ==External links==
* at ] * at ]


{{DEFAULTSORT:Hockey Stick Illusion}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hockey Stick Illusion}}
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Latest revision as of 05:36, 13 December 2023

2010 book by Andrew Montford

The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science
AuthorA.W. Montford
LanguageEnglish
SubjectClimate change
PublisherStacey International
Publication date2010
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Pages482
ISBN978-1-906768-35-5

The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science is a book written by Andrew Montford and published by Stacey International in 2010, which promotes climate change denial.

Montford, an accountant and science publisher who publishes a blog called 'Bishop Hill', writes about the "hockey stick graph" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years. The book has been criticized for its inaccuracies.

Background

According to Montford, in 2005 he followed a link from a British political blog to the Climate Audit website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of Caspar Ammann's "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.

Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it Caspar and the Jesus paper. Montford states that word of his article caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his article as a source in Misplaced Pages. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his article into book form.

Synopsis

IPCC FAR 1990 Figure 7.1.c (red) based on Lamb 1965 showing central England temperatures; central England temperatures to 2007 shown from Jones et al. 2009 (green dashed line). The high medieval temperatures contrast with the "hockey stick" MBH99 40 year average (blue, uncertainties omitted) and Moberg et al. 2005 low frequency signal (black).
The original northern hemisphere hockey stick graph of MBH99, smoothed curve shown in blue with its uncertainty range in light blue, overlaid with green dots showing the 30-year global average of the 2013 reconstruction by the PAGES 2k Consortium 2017. The red curve shows measured global mean temperature, according to HadCRUT4 data from 1850 to 2013.

The Hockey Stick Illusion first outlines a brief history of climate change science with particular emphasis on the description of the Medieval Warm Period in the first IPCC report in 1990, with its inclusion of a schematic based on central England temperatures which Montford describes as a representation of common knowledge at that time. He then argues that a need to overturn this "well-embedded paradigm" was met by the 1998 publication by Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes' of their "hockey stick graph" in Nature. The book describes how Steve McIntyre first became interested in the graph in 2002 and the difficulties he found in replicating the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) using available datasets, and further data which Mann gave him on request. It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Sciences and Edward Wegman and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.

The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls "Climategate". Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in The Hockey Stick Illusion. Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the peer review process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other paleoclimatologists' published works.

Reception

Montford had set out to provide a more detailed explanation than the primers Ross McKitrick had written describing the case he and McIntyre had produced against the MBH climate reconstructions, and when McKitrick contributed to a 2014 compilation published by the Institute of Public Affairs think-tank, he opened with a sentence saying the "best place to start when learning about the hockey stick is Andrew Montford's superb book". Matt Ridley discussed it in The Spectator, and in Prospect magazine said the book was "written with grace and flair" and deserved to win prizes, while conceding that he had financial interests in coal mining.

Other reviewers criticized the book as providing cover for individuals opposing action on climate change. Bob Ward in The Guardian described how "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn" presented arguments based on "glaring inaccuracies". In Geoscientist, Ward said Montford's "incredible yarn is based on a misleading and one-sided version of events, littered with inaccuracies". Nick Hewitt in Chemistry World outlined the basic physics of climate change, and said that, unable to dispute this, climate deniers, "(or sceptics as they are disingenuously described in this book) have made sustained attempts to discredit climate scientists and the way they work", concluding that "Readers of Chemistry World will have far better things to do than read this pedantic book." Richard Joyner, writing in Prospect, described it as "a McCarthyite book that uses the full range of smear tactics to peddle climate change denial."

See also

References

  1. ^ Hewitt, Nick (2010), "The hockey stick illusion: climategate and the corruption of science", Chemistry World, 7 (9)
  2. ^ Joyner, Richard (2010-08-23). "Mean-spirited scepticism".
  3. ^ Matt Ridley (2010-02-03). "The global warming guerrillas". The Spectator (spectator.co.uk). Retrieved 2017-01-08.
  4. "House of Commons Science and Technology Committee - Memorandum submitted by Andrew Montford (CRU 36) - The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Session 2009-2010 - Science and Technology Committee". UK Parliament. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  5. ^ Montford 2010, p. 13
  6. Montford 2008
  7. P. D. Jones et al., The Holocene 19,1 (2009) pp. 3–49, High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects Appendix A
  8. Montford 2010, pp. 19–30
  9. Montford 2010, pp. 57–87
  10. Montford 2010, pp. 151–401
  11. Montford 2010, pp. 402–49
  12. Montford 2010, p. 13.
  13. preprint from Climate Change: The Facts 2014, Institute for Policy Analysis, Australia.
  14. John Roskam; Alan J. Moran (2014). Climate Change: The Facts 2014. Institute of Public Affairs. ISBN 978-0-986398-30-8.
  15. Matt Ridley (2010-03-10). "The case against the hockey stick". Prospect (prospectmagazine.co.uk). Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  16. Bob Ward (2010-08-19). "Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 2010-08-25. Retrieved 2010-08-19. This article was amended on 20 August 2010 following a complaint from Andrew Montford to make it clear that we did not mean to imply that Andrew Montford deliberately published false information in order to support the arguments made in his book. We apologise if such a false impression was given.
  17. Ward, Bob (October 2010). "Not so jolly hockey stick". Geoscientist. Archived from the original on 2010-10-07. Retrieved 8 April 2011.

Bibliography and further reading

External links

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