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{{Short description|2010 book by Andrew Montford}}
{{pp-semi-sock|expiry=April 24, 2010|small=yes}}
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{{Infobox Book {{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 =
| author = ]
| image_caption =
| author = ]
| illustrator = | illustrator =
| cover_artist = | cover_artist =
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| series = | series =
| subject = ] | subject = ]
| genre = Non-Fiction | genre =
| publisher = ] | publisher = ]
| pub_date = 2010 | pub_date = 2010
| english_pub_date = | english_pub_date =
| pages = 482 | pages = 482
| isbn = 978 1 906768 35 5 | isbn = 978-1-906768-35-5
| oclc= | oclc =
| preceded_by = | preceded_by =
| followed_by = | followed_by =
}} }}


'''''The Hockey Stick Illusion''''' (subtitle '''''Climategate and the Corruption of Science''''') is a book written by Andrew Montford, author of the Bishop Hill Blog. Stacey International published the book in 2010. '''''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.
The book covers the history of the "]", the first version of which was published by ], ] and ] in 1998, from then to its prominent use by the ]. Criticisms by ] and ], as well as the ensuing hockey stick controversy, are also included in the book.


==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 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''.<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" />
In 2005, ] followed a link from a British political blog to the ] Web site. He said new visitors were pleading for an introduction to the controversy and that there was nothing to help people get up to speed on the science.

Over the course of a few days, Montford summarized a series of Climate Audit posts into a long article on his blog which he called "Caspar and the Jesus Paper."<ref name="Montford_2008-08-11_bishophill" /> <ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator" /> He said this article made his site go from a couple of hundred hits a day to 30,000 hits over three days. From these beginnings, the author took the first steps in writing his book.


==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.]]
In its seventeen chapters, ''The Hockey Stick Illusion'' relates the story of Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes's "hockey stick graph". Starting with a brief summary of the consensus view prior to 1998, and the first incarnation of the hockey stick graph, the book traces the history of what it claims is the slow unraveling of that same graph.
''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 few chapters of the book deal with the ]. Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in ''The Hockey Stick Illusion.'' Montford focuses on those e-mails which dealt with the ] process and how these pertained to McIntyre's efforts to get the data and methodology from Mann's and other ] published works. 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" />


==Reception== ==Reception==
Writing in '']'' magazine, ], the former science editor of '']'', said that this book was one of the best science books written in years. Said Ridley, "It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame."<ref name="prospect"/>


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"/>
], former editor of the '']'' magazine and co-author of ''The Chilling Stars'', wrote, "This is a thriller about codebreaking: computer codes that generated a false signal to the world about runaway global warming."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/1906768358/ref=sib_rdr_bc?ie=UTF8&p=S0DK&j=0#reader-page | title =The Hockey Stick Illusion, Back Cover |publisher=www.amazon.co.uk | accessdate=Thursday, Apr 01 2010}}</ref>{{rs}}


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 an article for '']'', ] wrote, "We can now read in shocking detail the truth of the outrageous efforts made to ensure that the same 2007 report was able to keep on board IPCC's most shameless stunt of all: the notorious "hockey stick" graph purporting to show that in the late 20th century, temperatures had been hurtling up to unprecedented levels."<ref name="The Telegraph">{{cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html | date=7:49PM GMT 27 Feb 2010 | title =A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC |author=] | publisher=www.telegraph.co.uk | accessdate=Saturday, Apr 03 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=2649497&sponsor= | date=MARCH 6, 2010 | title=The global warming alarmists |author=]| publisher=www.vancouversun.com |accessdate=Saturday, Apr 03 2010}}</ref>


==See also==
Writing in ''Discovery News'', ] co-founder ], said that Stve McIntyre could be compared to the ] TV series figure, on how he has done a pursuit of what he calls the self-denominated "hockey team" led by Michael Mann and their claim about the unprecedented and anomalous ] and the denying that any comparable or greater warming occurred in the ].<ref name="Gilder_2010-02-25_discoverynews" />
{{portal|Global warming}}

*]
An article by Bruce Robbins in '']'' states that the book shows that the science involved in climate change has been corrupted by political and environmental agendas. Robbins concludes, "The evidence against man-made global warming is growing and the ''Hockey Stick Illusion'' stands as the definitive account of a pivotal point in climate change science."<ref>Robbins, Bruce, "Climate of Change", '']'', March 31, 2010.</ref>
*]

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book
|ref=refMontford2010
|last= Montford
|first= Andrew
|title=The Hockey Stick Illusion; Climategate and the Corruption of Science
|publisher=]
|year=2010
|isbn=1906768358
|pages=482
}}

==See Also==
*] *]
*]
*]


== References == == References ==
{{Reflist|refs= {{Reflist|2|refs=


<!-- 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="2010-04_Amazon">{{cite web
| url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illusion-Climategate-Corruption-Science-Independent/dp/1906768358/ref=sr_1_1/279-8648955-0710718?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269976520&sr=8-1
| title=Five Star Reviews On Amazon
| accessdate = 2010-04-07
| archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5oo70K07j
| archivedate = 2010-04-07
| quote =
}}</ref>-->


<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p30">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 19–30<!--|loc= chapter 1-->}}</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 name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p57">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 57–87<!--|loc= chapter 3-->}}</ref>
<ref name="Montford_2008-08-11_bishophill">{{cite web

| url=http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p151-401">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 151–401<!--|loc= chapter 6-11-->}}</ref>
| title=Casper and the Jesus paper

| publisher=www.bishophill.squarespace.com
<ref name="Montford_2010_Stacey_p402-449">{{Harvnb|Montford|2010|pp= 402–49<!--|loc= chapter 17-->}}</ref>
| date=2008-08-11
| accessdate=2010-04-01
}}</ref>


<ref name="prospect">{{cite news <ref name="prospect">{{cite news
Line 106: Line 74:
| date = 2010-03-10 | date = 2010-03-10
| title = The case against the hockey stick | title = The case against the hockey stick
| author = ] | author = Matt Ridley
| author-link = Matt Ridley
| work = ] (]) | work = ] (])
| accessdate = 2010-04-03 | access-date = 2010-04-03
}}</ref> }}</ref>


<ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator">{{cite news <ref name="Ridley_2010-02-03_Spectator">{{cite news
|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/politics/all/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml |url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/2010/02/the-global-warming-guerrillas/
|title=The global warming guerrillas |title=The global warming guerrillas
|last=Ridley |author = Matt Ridley
|first=Matt |author-link = Matt Ridley
|date=2010-02-03 |date=2010-02-03
|publisher=] (]) |publisher=] (])
|accessdate=2010-04-09 |access-date=2017-01-08
}}</ref> }}</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
| url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html
| date=2010-02-27
| title =A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC
| author=Christopher Booker
| author-link=Christopher Booker
| publisher=www.telegraph.co.uk
| 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
| archive-date = 2010-05-23
| url-status=live
| location=London}}</ref>

<ref name="Fisher_2010_JofEL">{{Cite journal
| last = Fisher
| first = Elizabeth
| author-link =
| coauthors= Pasky Pascual and Wendy Wagner
| title = Understanding Environmental Models in Their Legal and Regulatory Context
| journal = Journal of Environmental Law
| volume = 22
| issue = 2
| pages = 251–283
| year = 2010
| 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
| archive-date = 2010-08-07
| url-status = live
| 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).
}}</ref>

<ref name="Prins_2010-05_HartwellPaper">{{Cite journal
| last = Prins
| first = Gwyn
| author-link =
| coauthors= ], Isabel Galiana, Christopher Green, Reiner Grundmann, Atte Korhola, Frank Laird, ], Steve Rayner, Daniel Sarewitz, ], ], and Hiroyuki Tezuka
| title = The Hartwell Paper: A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009
| journal = ] Institute for Science, Innovation, and Society
| year = 2010
| month = 05
| 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
| url-status = live
| archive-date = 2010-07-05
}}</ref>
-->


}} }}


==Further reading== ==Bibliography and further reading==
*{{cite book *{{cite book
| ref=Booker2009
|refs=refBooker2010
|last= Booker | last= Booker
|first= Christopher | first= Christopher
|title=] | 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
| last = Montford
| first = Andrew
| url=http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
| title=Caspar and the Jesus paper
| date=2008-08-11
| 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 ]
*


{{DEFAULTSORT:Hockey Stick Illusion}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hockey Stick Illusion}}
] ]
] ]
] ]
] ]
]
]

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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