The Columbia Journalism Review reports on Mann's comments at the ScienceWriters2010 conference, which I posted about here. The report also covers comments made by NAS boss, Ralph Ciccerone, at the same meeting. Ciccerone of course needs little introduction to readers here because of the role he played in the shenanigans over the Hockey Stick hearings.
Asked in an interview about what he thought of media coverage over the past year, Cicerone was characteristically circumspect: “I don’t have any fault with the media coverage. The media was covering the news. That was no surprise.”
Looking ahead, given the politicized environment in Washington, Cicerone said he was counting on science media coverage of new evidence documenting the impact of climate change around the globe “to help clear the air.” He noted that ongoing measurements of surface temperature, ice, and sea level provide “consistent signals that the planet is warming…. We need to keep watching the data. We’re confronted with a long-term issue that isn’t going to go away. We need to keep the focus on this issue.”
Many commentators have suggested that the Climategate story was blown up from nothing by a coalition of sceptics and media pundits. It's therefore interesting to see Ciccerone putting this argument to bed.