Books
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Bishop Hill May 27, 2011 Climate: HSI Climate: MWP Some discussion of the Hockey Stick and the Hockey Stick Illusion at the website of scientist Lee Klinger, a former NCAR researcher. Klinger has queried the presentation of Mann's graph at a conference about the Gaia hypothesis without mention of the controversy.
(H/T Jane Coles in Unthreaded)
Bishop Hill May 21, 2011 Climate: HSI Climate: WG2 Climate: other Princeton physicist Will Happer wonders what the optimum level of carbon dioxide is:
We conclude that atmospheric CO2 levels should be above 150 ppm to avoid harming green plants and below about 5000 ppm to avoid harming people. That is a very wide range, and our atmosphere is much closer to the lower end than to the upper end. The current rate of burning fossil fuels adds about 2 ppm per year to the atmosphere, so that getting from the current level to 1000 ppm would take about 300 years—and 1000 ppm is still less than what most plants would prefer, and much less than either the nasa or the Navy limit for human beings.
The Hockey Stick Illusion is mentioned too:
The IPCC and its worshipful supporters did their best to promote the hockey-stick temperature curve. But as John Adams remarked, “Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” The hockey-stick curve caught the attention of two Canadians, Steve McIntyre, a mining consultant, and an academic statistician, Ross McKitrick. As they began to look more carefully at the original data—much of it from tree rings—and at the analysis that led to the hockey stick, they became more and more puzzled. By hard, remarkably detailed, and persistent work over many years, consistently frustrated in their efforts to obtain original data and data-analysis methods, they showed that the hockey stick was not supported by observational data. An excellent, recent history of this episode is A. W. Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion.
Bishop Hill May 18, 2011 Climate: HSI Climate: Sceptics At the end of last month another conference bringing together the two sides of the climate debate took place quietly in Germany. The participants were a team from the Potsdam Institute - Schellnhuber, Rahmstorf et al - and a group from EIKE, the main sceptic body in Germany.
EIKE have just issued a report documenting the discussions from their point of view. This can be seen below. The Hockey Stick Illusion is mentioned.
Bishop Hill May 10, 2011 Climate: HSI Climate: Jones 
Members of the CRU book group couldn't wait to see what Phil Jones was going to suggest as the title for next month...
H/T Anoneumouse
Bishop Hill May 3, 2011 Climate: HSI A brief interview with me is up at the Nuclear Street website. "Raw, uncut and uncensored" it says.
Bishop Hill Apr 24, 2011 Climate: HSI This article about the Hockey Stick Illusion came out at the end of last year, but I've only just seen it. It's from the Humanities and Technology Review.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn sees such academic battles as comparable to those of political revolutions, wherein the participants in the revolutionary process try to impose a new world view or to maintain an existing one. Since Kuhn does not perceive the history of science as the story of one achievement progressing to another and then to another, he might find the account contained within Montford‟s book to be the usual practice of professional scientists as they establish or overthrow a paradigm. Some readers of The Hockey Stick Illusion, however, may conclude that the book‟s subtitle, “the corruption of science,” is the more appropriate assessment for at least some of the so-called normal science of certain climatologists.
Bishop Hill Apr 23, 2011 Climate: HSI Randy Brich, writing for the Nuclear Power Industry News blog reviews the Hockey Stick Illusion:
In a masterful expose on scientific sleuthing, practiced primarily by Steve McIntyre and his fortuitous statistical economist friend, Ross McKitrick, Montford’s captivating climate science chronology commands attention and must, I assume, be giving Mann and his co-conspirators fantastic fits.
H/T Fergalr
Bishop Hill Apr 19, 2011 Climate: HSI An interesting article in which the author, Art Rangno, compares his experiences trying to replicate a cloud-seeding experiment to those of Steve McIntyre on the Hockey Stick. He draws unfavourable comparisons between paleoclimate and his own field regarding data availability, and says kind things about the Hockey Stick Illusion in the process.
Almost at every turn in this monumental exposé by A. W. Montford, I see parallels in the many cloud seeding reanalyses I did at the University of Washington with Peter Hobbs. The two sentences quoted above from Montford’s book, so fundamental a step in checking results, literally leapt off the page since that is exactly where the most basic replication starts, and where we always began in our cloud seeding (CS) reanalyses.
Bishop Hill Apr 14, 2011 Climate: HSI The Hockey Stick Illusion is cited in a forthcoming book chapter by Seth Roberts.
Nowadays blogs show the innovative power of free time. There are millions of bloggers; almost none make a significant amount of money. This leaves them free to say whatever they want. In Italy, the blogger Beppe Grillo has exerted substantial anti-corruption pressure on the government (Mueller, 2008). The Canadian blogger Steve McIntyre has had an enormous effect on the global debate about climate change. His requests for archived data led to Climategate. His examination of the famous hockey-stick graph led to its dismissal (Montford, 2010). He did this work during his free time.
The book is Roberts, S. (in press). How economics shaped human nature: A theory of human evolution. In S. Cai & N. Beltz (Eds.), Mind and Cognition. Beijing: Springer.
Bishop Hill Mar 20, 2011 Climate: HSI This is guest post by Messenger.
I was in the audience at the Bishop’s talk in St Andrews. He had been sponsored for this appearance by a member the Tayside branch of the Royal Society of Chemistry, who had read the Hockey Stick Illusion, and who, as I mentioned elsewhere, had thought it was a Good Thing.
The talk was the closing one of a regular annual series held on Friday nights at the University. The lecture theatre was just about full, probably 80 people or so, including St Andrews academics, which was more people than usual and very encouraging. The Bishop’s presentation was confident and entertaining, giving a condensed version of the highlights of the HS controversy with graphs and photographs of the protagonists on the screen. He went on to demonstrate how the CRU emails showed that Steve McIntyre’s suspicions had been correct, matching the most damning email comments to what the audience had already been told. He followed this section with a brief look at the various inquiry fiascos and summed up with an optimistic look at the future possibilities for how this current situation in climate science might develop, both here and in the USA.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2011 Climate: HSI H/T to Lord Beaverbrook, who found this in the comments at WUWT:
I am not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I wanted to mention an interesting conversation I just had with my local Liberal MP Peter Chandler.
Some time ago I had dropped my copy of the book “The Hockey Stick Illusion” as I was aware from previous conversations that he and I saw pretty much eye to eye on matters relating to climate change, conservationism and power generation and I believed the book would be a good source of infor providing links and a clear discussion which not all MP’s in this country are willing to do.
My first call in after some time to see if he had read it revealed he had not yet had time to do so, however that was not the case today.
I called in to the office and we had a discussion on the book and he let me know that he has used it extensively in climate change discussions – and in fact in a number of cases related to but not always directly about CO2 emissions. In addition, he has quoted passages and given sources in local parliament and says that “the best thing about the book is that it is very clear on giving source information so when the people who are ‘enusiastic’ on climate change ask him questions such as ‘where is his source?’ he can easily give references’. He also said that with some of these people he drives them up the wall somewhat because every time he does bring up these points some people do not like them because it brings solid facts to the table.
I was somewhat floored by the use to which he has put the book and wanted to just let you know that here is a good example of where the book has had direct impact on discussions of policy for my local electorate (Darwin, Australia).
He also warned me that the book was currently on his nightstand and that when I got it back it would be a “work in progress” (referencing it will likely not come back in pristine condition) which I have no problem with as I have a feeling it has been put to very good use and more use than I probably could have done.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2011 Climate: HSI Just to confirm that I'm speaking tonight in St Andrews. The talk is 8pm in the Physics Building (Lecture Theatre B). The public are welcome.
Bishop Hill Mar 15, 2011 Climate: HSI Another review of the Hockey Stick Illusion, this time in The Skinny. I thought this was interesting in that it is treads a middle ground between all-out praise and all-out condemnation. It ends on a good note though...
Montford's account of the development of different scientific arguments on both sides of a very complicated argument is extremely well handled, and as such it’s hugely impressive.
Bishop Hill Mar 6, 2011 Climate: HSI Some time ago somebody asked Andy Revkin if he had read the Hockey Stick Illusion, a request that was met with what I felt was a fairly silly reply: (a) he said that he was too busy and (b) he gave a pointer to Tamino's RealClimate "review". As I pointed out in my response it was odd to see a reputable journalist pointing to such a travesty of an article - I certainly can't think of many other quotations out of context quite so outrageous as the one Tamino pulled on me.
A couple of days ago, Revkin was asked exactly the same question, and interestingly he gave a somewhat different response.
Bishop Hill Feb 26, 2011 Climate: CRU Climate: HSI You may remember that my Climategate Inquiries report was recently translated into Italian, and was published by a Turin-based think tank. Today I picked up my name being mentioned on Italian blog and I decided to get a machine translation. It was well worth it, because this must be one of the funniest pieces about my work to date.
The author appears to be a science writer and journalist called Mark F. Let's take a look at what he has to say - this is a machine translation tidied up by me. I think it's right though...
