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* normalized their data incorrectly for ] (which as a result produces hockeysticks) * normalized their data incorrectly for ] (which as a result produces hockeysticks)
* obtained, but did not report, correlation coefficients close to zero (indicating that their results lack ]) * obtained, but did not report, correlation coefficients close to zero (indicating that their results lack ])
* The inclusion of bristlecone site which are a poor temperature proxie. * The inclusion of bristlecone site's which are a poor temperature proxie, distort the temperature reconstruction.


MBH deny this. MBH deny this.

Revision as of 08:49, 15 November 2005

Ross McKitrick is a Canadian environmental economist. He is known for his work on global warming. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario (since 2001) and, since 2002, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian policy think tank that opposes the Kyoto Protocol.

McKitrick gained his doctorate in 1996 from the University of British Columbia, and in the same year was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph ).

McKitrick co-wrote the 2002 book Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming with Christopher Essex. It was runner-up for the Donner Prize as the Best Canadian Book on Public Policy, and finalist for the Canadian Science Writers' Association Book Prize.

Criticism of Mann et al

McKitrick has recently (since approximately 2002) worked on global warming, concerning which he is a sceptic. His best-known work is Corrections to the Mann et al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series, coauthored with Stephen McIntyre. This presented an "audit" of work by Michael Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (MBH); it appeared in Energy and Environment in 2003. The matter was later referred to Nature, following which Mann et al. published a corrigendum, including a re-statement of their data and methods, which appeared on July 1 2004. Mann et al claim that the corrigendum did not affect the results, however.

Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick reported finding further errors in the MBH approach .

In October 2004, Richard A. Muller brought McKitrick and McIntyre's critique of MBH to wider public attention in a column for Technology Review but the claims are disputed (here).

In February 2005, the article "Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance" by McIntyre and McKitrick was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

To summarise McKitrick and McIntyre's critique, they claim that MBH:

  • normalized their data incorrectly for Principal components analysis (which as a result produces hockeysticks)
  • obtained, but did not report, correlation coefficients close to zero (indicating that their results lack statistical significance)
  • The inclusion of bristlecone site's which are a poor temperature proxie, distort the temperature reconstruction.

MBH deny this.

Criticism of McKitrick

McKitrick's own data analysis has been criticised, in particular by Tim Lambert, who has written on his web page about what he considers serious flaws in McKitrick and Michaels 2004, notably a Software Bug related to whether a cosine functions used radians or degrees. Lambert claimed this bug invalidated the conclusions of McKitrick and Michaels 2002. The authors have acknowledged the error but claim that the effects were "very small", that the correction "improved the overall fit", and that their overall conclusion was unaffected . Lambert has other criticisms of McKitrick in a special category on his blog.

Partial list of papers

  • Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance McIntyre S, McKitrick R GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 32 (3): art. no. L03710 FEB 12 2005 (times cited: 0)
  • A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data McKitrick R, Michaels PJ, CLIMATE RESEARCH 26 (2): 159-173 MAY 25 2004 (times cited: 2)
  • The existence and uniqueness of optimal pollution policy in the presence of victim defense measures McKitrick R, Collinge RA, JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT 44 (1): 106-122 JUL 2002 (times cited: 0)
  • The design of regulations expressed as ratios or percentage quotas McKitrick R, JOURNAL OF REGULATORY ECONOMICS 19 (3): 295-305 2001 (times cited: 0)
  • Linear Pigovian taxes and the optimal size of a polluting industry, McKitrick R, Collinge RA CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS-REVUE CANADIENNE D ECONOMIQUE 33 (4): 1106-1119 NOV 2000 (times cited: 0)

See also

External links

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