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The Hockey Stick Illusion

The Hockey Stick Illusion;Climategate and the Corruption of Science

Author	A.W. Montford
Language	English
Subject	Climate change
Genre	Non-Fiction
Publisher	Stacey International
Publication date	2010
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	482
ISBN	978 1 906768 35 5

Written by Andrew Montford who is author of the Bishop Hill Blog. The book covers the history of Michal Manns Hockey Stick graph (MBH98) from when it was first published to it`s prominent use by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and how Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre questioned it, and the events which followed, the Hockey stick controversy. It has received five star reviews on Amazon

Philip Bratby in his submission to the Climategate inquiry recommended that the committee members should read chapter fifteen of the book

Background

In 2005 Andrew Montford followed a link from a British political blog to the Climate Audit website. He noticed that new visitors would plead for an introduction to the controversy and that there was nothing to help people get up to speed on the science. After the story of Casper Ammann`s replication of the hockey stick came to light and the antics involved in keeping his paper alive Montford has said he felt it was a Public Duty to make the story more widely known.

Over the course of a few days Montford summarised a series of Climate Audit posts into a long article on his blog which he called "Casper and the jesus paper" which he says made his site go from a couple of hundred hits a day to thirty thousand hits over three days. From these beginnings the author took the first steps in writing the book.

Synopsis

This book relates the story of the hockey stick graph from Steve McIntyre's earliest attempts to reproduce Michael Mann's Hockey Stick graph, to the publication of his work and the launch of a congressional inquiry. Starting with a brief summary of the consensus view prior to 1998, and the first incarnation of the hockey stick graph, this book traces the history of what it claims is the slow unraveling of that same graph. Following an overview of the mathematics behind the reconstruction, and the initial challenges made by McKitrick and McIntyre, the history of the attempts to check the validity of the hockey stick reconstruction are reviewed.

The last few chapters deal with the ClimateGate controversy, and the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in the book. Focusing on those e-mails which dealt with the Peer Review process and how it pertained to McIntyre`s efforts to get the data and Methodology from both Mann`s and other Paleoclimatologists published works.

Reception

Writing in Prospect Magazine Matt Ridley the former science editor of The Economist said that this book was one of the best science books written in years and that "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"

George Gilder writing in Discovery News said "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 Phil Jones, 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" and "Don't miss this definitive book"

Christopher Booker in an article for The Telegraph said, "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"

Andrew Bolt wrote in the Herald Sun "The astonishing history of the fake hockey stick that was used to convince so many dupes the world hadn’t ever been this hot in human history. Learn how scientists put up the walls rather than help expose a critically important mistake"

Nigel Calder former editor of New Scientist 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"

Gil Spencer writing in the Daily Times said "Mann was responsible for the infamous “hockey stick” graph, the poster child of former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that together with the “independent confirmations,” have now been thoroughly discredited. You can read all about it in detail in the brilliantly written book “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A.W. Montford. It reads like a detective story and gives breathtaking insight to the underhanded tricks and lies of the “team.”"

References

1. "Five Star Reviews On Amazon".
2. "Memorandum submitted by Phillip Bratby (CRU 17)".
3. "The Hockey Stick Illusion, Preface". www.amazon.co.uk.
4. "Casper and the Jesus paper". Retrieved Thursday, Apr 01 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); External link in |publiser= (help); Unknown parameter |publiser= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)
5. "The case against the hockey stick". www.prospectmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved Saturday, Apr 03 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
6. "George Gilder Hails "The Hockey Stick Illusion" on the Science Scandal of Global Warming". www.discoverynews.org. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
7. "A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved Saturday, Apr 03 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
8. "The global warming alarmists". www.vancouversun.com. Retrieved Saturday, Apr 03 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
9. "New Book: The Hockey Stick Illusion; Global Warming and the Corruption of Science". www.climateresearchnews.com. Retrieved Saturday, Apr 03 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
10. "The Hockey Stick Illusion, Back Cover". www.amazon.co.uk. Retrieved Thursday, Apr 01 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
11. "Spencer: It's time for Joe Sestak to name names". www.delcotimes.com. Retrieved Thursday, April 01, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External Links

• An interview with Andrew Montford

• Bishop Hill Blog

• Science books
• Climate change