Readers may be aware that there is a case making its way through the court system, brought by climate scientist Michael Mann, who has sued the National Review Online, and the tobacco/oil funded snakepit Competitive Enterprise Institute for slander.
Quick recap from the Guardian:
Michael Mann, a scientist at the centre of the “climate wars”, has sued a rightwing thinktank and a magazine for comparing him to the convicted sex offender and disgraced football coach Jerry Sandusky and accusing him of academic fraud.
Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, announced the defamation lawsuit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the National Review in a posting on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
The 37-page complaint arises from blog posts published last July, and accuses National Review and CEI of recycling “false and defamatory statements” about Mann’s research.
Mann, the author of the iconic hockey stick graph showing a sharp uptick in global temperatures after 1900, has come under repeated attack from climate contrarians.
He has been cleared of academic wrongdoing by seven separate investigations, but the attacks have persisted – culminating in last July’s blogs which likened Mann to Sandusky.
A post on the CEI blog referred to Mann as “the other scandal” at Penn State and accused the scientist of “molesting data” about climate change. The sentences likening Mann to Sandusky were later removed.
National Review later picked up the post, although the writer added a minor caveat.
“The Court finds that there is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits,” said a DC Superior Court judge in her latest procedural ruling in the defamation case of Michael Mann v. National Review, et al. “The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that ‘actual malice’ is present in the [National Review’s] conduct.”
On August 30 the Court denied the Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration of the Court’s July 19 order, which had affirmed Prof. Mann’s right to proceed in his defamation lawsuit. The text of the August 30 Court Order is here in PDF.
Some excerpts from the Court Order denying Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration:
Defamation
… The Court finds that there is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits. As the Court stated in its previous Order, the NR Defendants’ reference to Plaintiff “as the man behind the fraudulent climate change ‘hockey stick’ graph” was essentially an allegation of fraud by Plaintiff. …
The Court clearly recognizes that some members involved in the climate-change discussions and debates employ harsh words. The NR Defendants are reputed to use this manner of speech; however there is a line between rhetorical hyperbole and defamation. In this case, the evidence before the Court demonstrates that something more than mere rhetorical hyperbole is, at least at this stage present. Accusations of fraud, especially where such accusations are made frequently through the continuous usage of words such as “whitewashed,” “intellectually bogus,” “ringmaster of the tree-ring circus” and “cover-up” amount to more than rhetorical hyperbole. …
The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that “actual malice” is present in the NR Defendants’ conduct. …
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (“IIED”)
… The Court finds that Plaintiff’s claim for IIED is similar to that for defamation. There is sufficient evidence before the Court to indicate “actual malice.” The NR Defendants have frequently accused Plaintiff of academic fraud regardless of their awareness that Plaintiff has been investigated by several bodies and his work found to be proper. The NR Defendant’s persistence despite the findings of the investigative bodies could be likened to a witch hunt. In fact, Plaintiff had nothing to do with the Sandusky case yet the NR Defendants seized upon that criminal act by a pedophile and did more, this Court finds, than simply comment on another article.
The Court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiff. To place Plaintiff’s name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.
Stay tuned.
Just for fun – review of the case so far:
August 19: Michael Mann v. National Review et al. defamation lawsuit – new Plaintiff’s briefs
Oct. 23, 2012: Bam! Mike Mann files Suit Against Defamatory Denialists, National Review, CEI
This is good news. Disagreement among people and the right to publicly express that disagreement in open debate of opposing viewpoints are one thing. Slander, defamation and deliberate misrepresentation of another’s work are entirely another. The malicious goons at CEI, WUWT and similar extreme right-wing venues have been publicly harassing Dr. Mann and others in the climate research community for years now… and they’ve been getting away with it by citing their right to “free speech” and accusing anyone who stands up to them of “censorship”. It’s about damned time these thugs were were put in their place once and for all.
Actually these accusations are echoed in a lot of denier talks on any kind of forum. I am frequently called a gullable fool whenever I mention Mann’s hockey stick in Norway. Its clear that sites like WUWT and hockeyschtick or whatever its called is really damaging to the discussion – especially if people actually go around believing Mann’s research is bogus – hence any supporter of it is a tin-foil-hat fool (heard that one more than once).
So if Mann dont win through with this I feel its about time that perhaps a common mass lawsuit from scientists towards Koch funded think tanks should be in order. Its about time they are put in place, as the slandering is really going too far and really ruins any hope of serious discussion around climate change.
A major part of the problem is that the denier sites have a tendency to get high on the Google search results simply because they seem to be better at cross linking eachothers blogs and stuff. So when people search on e.g. “hockey stick” they are likely to be bombarded by denier propaganda and not the real science involved in Mann’s work.
I recently have had a longish discussion with two guys running under the nick names “hidethedecline” and “naturetrick” (perhaps the same guy under two accounts) – and its clear that they havent really bothered to see what Mann’s research was about and that it wasnt a decline in temperatures that the whole thing was about. But its clear they are on a crusade. If you even mention sites like Skepticalscience you get hammered with “left wing propaganda” kind of comments.
But its important to keep the fight up and rub these imbeciles faces in the dirt.
@Deborah Stark : Spot on 100%. Well said and seconded by me.
meaningless. the judge obviously knows nothing of the particulars of the case. the judge does not know that mann refused to allow anyone to examine his data, equations and computer code, so any “review” is not an actual review.
the judge does not know that mann’s hockey has been discredited to the point that even al gore and the ipcc refuse to use it any more. the judge does not know that mann’s “investigations” did not include any witness testimony from expert witnesses who tested the hockey stick and found it could be duplicated by entering virtually any data.
the judge does not know that the mwp is now accepted science and the hockey stick’s validity is impossible. the judge does not know there are dozens of peer-reviewed papers that show the hockey stick to be scientifically invalid.
the judge does not know that even keith briffa, who supplied the tree ring data to mann, proved in a peer-reviewed paper the data was misused and cherry-picked.
this case needs to go forward. mann needs to be exposed. and he will be. when this case is over, his reputation will be destroyed.
Mann’s data has been available online since at least 1999, for anyone who cared. It is you who are misinformed.
The “computer code” nonsense is a canard. IF the data is good, the code shouldn’t matter. If the code is skewed, why would you want to use it? The fact is, the graph has now been replicated so many times, by so many teams, using so many different types of data, it is a sad joke when such as yourself crawl out from the Glenn Beck zone and spew this 15 year old nonsense. Just to bring you up to date, the most recent data corroborating Mann goes back 11,000 years. If you hated the hockey stick, wait till you see the “ski jump”
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/03/08/from-hockey-stick-to-ski-jump/
As for your claim that Al Gore does not use the Hockey stick, I’ve been to 3 or 4 Al Gore events, most recently as a mentor, and am not aware of this development. The “not used by IPCC” is a dead giveaway that you have no familiarity whatever with the IPCC, as Manns’ graph is viewable as part of the most recent IPCC report, which you can view here (and read the discussion.)
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf
page 467, figure 6.10, labeled MBH 1999
Of course I’m under no illusion that you will threaten your bubble of illusion by actually doing the reading.
It is more proof of the laughably ill informed and pervasive nature of the propaganda that fools such as yourself actually believe and repeat this nonsense.
A fair judicial hearing will show the incompetence, viciousness, and venality of the attacks on Mann (yet again) – but this time, hopefully with the kind of punitive teeth that will send a message to others that this conduct will not go unopposed.
You’re welcome to post any time you want, Mr Spung, if that’s your name, but please don’t think I believe in a respectful discussion with Fox-addled idiots. It’s that I’m always looking for fresh meat, and I like to use bonehead claims such as yours as a springboard to illustrate truths.
So post away, just keep it clean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUFGh89bvp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhLcoPT9KM
the data is not available for tree ring studies or ice core temps. the weightings are not available. the chief criticism of mann is his overwhelming weighting given to data sources that confirm a flat line of temp history prior to the mid 20th century and the extreme underweighting of other data sources that show a more traditionally accepted variability.
dozens of peer-reviewed studies of the mwp confirm that temps then were roughly equal to today’s temps. yet, none of that is apparent from mann’s graph.
the computer code is necessary to determine which data sets are given what percentage weight in the final calcs. none of this is available, obviously, because it would expose how flawed the structure of the hockey stick is.
no one has been able to independently duplicate the hockey stick. mann’s statistical methods have been publicly shredded by statistics experts.
mann is toast. once discovery is completed, he will be disgraced. even keith briffa, who co-authored papers with him in the past, will be testifying against mann in the trial. trust me, this will be fun for all skeptics to watch.
Yep — Mann has definitely worked hard to hide his data/code from the public.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret. I conducted my own investigation into Mann’s nefarious antics; my investigation uncovered “double-secret” links to Mann’s hockey-stick data and code at the realclimate.org web-site.
Read on if you want to see the shocking details of of my discovery.
When I visited realclimate.org (one of the leading climate-science blogs), I discovered a label in bold lettering at the top-center of the web-site that read “data sources”.
I then clicked on the link cleverly hidden under that “data sources” label and discovered another list of links. One of those links was cleverly named “Paleo Reconstructions (including code)”.
The name of that link has big, intimidating sciencey words like “Paleo” and “Reconstructions” in an obvious attempt to confuse people in order to discourage them from clicking on that link.
But I didn’t let that obvious obfuscation tactic discourage me, and I clicked on the link anyway. I then discovered another list of links. Among them were:
Mann et al (2008) (also here, Mann et al (2009))
Mann et al (1998/1999)
I clicked on the above links and was taken straight to all of Mann’s hockey-stick data and code.
Now, it should be quite obvious that those crafty climate-scientists are using “double-secret reverse psychology” to keep clever folks like Rick Spung from finding the data/code that those scientists have been trying to hide.
And the fact that Mr. Spung was unable to find Mann’s data/code is a testament to the effectiveness the crafty obfuscation tactics of hiding the data/code behind links with names like “data sources” and “Paleo Reconstructions (including code)”.
Is there no end to the sneaky tactics that those nefarious scientists are willing to stoop to in order hide their research from the public?
hahahahaha! just because something says “data” doesn’t mean it contains all the relevant data needed to reconstruct the hockey stick graph.
if you don’t believe me, try it. pull up all the marvelous data you uncovered. now, try to reconstruct the graph.
lol
But the same kind of graph has been reproduced by many others over and over from different sets of proxy data. Are all of these collaborating?
how can the graph be reproduced with different data and look the same? that’s a bug, not a feature. it shows the weighting equations have rendered the graph to be hopelessly corrupted.
“how can the graph be reproduced with different data and look the same? that’s a bug, not a feature. it shows the weighting equations have rendered the graph to be hopelessly corrupted.”
— Am I being “Poe’d” here?
“[H]ow can the graph be reproduced with different data and look the same?”
Um, because it is based on real data and reflects reality? That’s how science works.
Neil
@ Rick Spung : “..the judge obviously knows nothing of the particulars of the case.”
ROTFLMAO. Great satire – I do take it you meant that deliberately as aPoe, yeah?
I mean no one could possiblybe so utterly stupid as to claim a judge wouldn’t know anything about the case he’s presently hearing right?
.. Oh. .. you were serious? (Double facepalm followed by a slow headshake at wonderment that someone could really be so dumb.)
PS. Not that I can really talk when it comes to grammar but you are actually supposed to start sentences and spell names with an initial capital letter. Press the key as well as the relevant letter on your keyboard, dude.
um, you did read the order, right? you read where the judge admitted to several mistakes in the facts of the case, but then said they didn’t matter?
notice she didn’t dispute nr’s claims of her lack of knowledge. she just said it didn’t matter.
whatever, that’s fine. she’s retired now, and someone else will be hearing the case from here on out.
Rick ” satirist surely” Spung : “the judge does not know that even keith briffa, who supplied the tree ring data to mann, proved in a peer-reviewed paper the data was misused and cherry-picked.”
So which peer reviewed paper would that be precisely please Rick? Published in which journal on what date and with what title? Page number or link would be handy.
Citation badly needed. Oh and while your at it, can you provide that same bibliographic reference info for, say just three of the supposed “dozens of peer-reviewed papers that show the hockey stick to be scientifically invalid.” I doubt that very much but do prove me wrong if you can.
Don’t show us the journal of Pulled out of own backside though please, the pages there are bit too soiled and smelly for effective use and it makes you look like an ass.
Or really is your intention parodic because if so Poe’s law has struck completely.
lol…
here’s briffa’s new paper:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/28/manns-hockey-stick-disappears-and-crus-briffa-helps-make-the-mwp-live-again-by-pointing-out-bias-in-ther-data/
here are summaries of dozens and dozens of studies that destroy the hockey stick:
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=6946bd70cb&e=f4e33fdd1e
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/03/08/more-than-700-scientists-from-400-institutions-in-40-countries-have-contributed-peerreviewed-papers-providing-evidence-that-the-medieval-warm-period-was-real-global-warmer-than-the-present/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/11/evidence-for-a-global-medieval-warm-period/
there are literally too many to count. this is going to be so much fun…
More of the same incompetence and crackpottery that we’ve come to expect from the usual suspects….
Here’s a nice example (just one of many)
The GISP2 temperature history screwup — trying to use ice core data from a single location in Greenland to argue that the globe overall was warmer during the MWP than it is now. That stunt demonstrated spectacular incompetence on at least two levels.
1) Conflating a single location with the entire planet.
2) Failing to realize that the GISP2 ice-core record ends in *1855*. That is the most recent time for which the ice in the core was consolidated enough to encapsulate air bubbles to be sampled.
Claiming that an 1855 temperature reading from one location in Greenland represents the current global-average temperature demonstrates a level of incompetence rarely seen outside the global-warming “skeptic” community.
If I thought that arguing with spung might be in any way productive, I could dig out lots more examples of such incompetence from the links he provided.
Indeed, and like many so extremely hung up on the MWP that one would think their science knowledge actually came from the same period.
When not bashing all proxy measurements replicating Mann’s work, it seems its back to “its all natural variation” as if Mann’s work is correct after all but its all natural since the WMP was warm.
Anything to conjure up some other explanation than the obvious one, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and filling the atmosphere with 40% more within 100 years is substantial enough for the globe to absorb more heat. Even if you cant describe any willynilly detail of climate science, the physical facts stand for themselves.
the only person hung up on the mwp is the guy who went to such great lengths to falsify a hockey stick-shaped graph that wished it away. the mwp is THE refutation to mann’s fraud. that is the only reason why I mention it. in case you haven’t noticed, the subject of this particular blog post happens to be mann’s graph.
and with regards to your co2 claims, nothing could be more incorrect. co2 levels in the past were several times what they are today. this is documented scientific fact. and yet, no runaway greenhouse effects occurred.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=77
as you said, the physical facts stand for themselves. co2 is not the primary driver of climate fluctuation.
obviously you didn’t bother to read through the massive amount of literature I provided. the peer-reviewed studies that confirm the mwp cover evidence found all around the world.
here are more references:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwparctic.php
again, I’ve only scratched the surface. several hundred scientists have published papers that dispute the hockey stick graph.
I tried to provide citations but the dear leader of the blog won’t approve my comment.
This is the tip of the spear.
Future climate wars will be fought in the courts…
criminal, not civil.
the tobacco trials will be the template. It might take 10 years, but eventually there will be legal reckoning with these pirates.
Another analogy -the trials of asbestos (wittenoon -sp?) and also teh BP oil spill in the Gulf a year or three (?) ago.
I really do hope the worst culprits who have so badly delayed action and made the world needlessly worse for everyone are made accountable and face serious punishments. If it isn’t technically criminal to do as they’ve done, then it should be!
I guess a 100% tax of the profits from all oil businesses would help if the US is to turn around their energy policy. Personally quite a few of the owners should be put in jail and the whole thing taken over by the government for a controlled rationing thing – really its the only way you can curb CO2 emissions. Leaving it to the private market and you can be sure it will be burned or sold as fast as possible.
But knowing how left-wing such a proposal is I am not sure the US is able to change anything fast enough – and certainly not to meet the +2C target.
Sorry for being the pessimist, but there is just too many boneheads in power in the US. And as long as they also keep funding and supporting climate denial, the “democracy” will take forever to figure this one out.
that’s insanity. if you destroy the oil and gas business, tens of millions of americans will die of starvation, exposure and lack of medicine within the first year alone.
@Rick Spung: and there we have it. It’s all about maintaining the status quo in the land of the fee and the home of the depraved.
lol, yeah, if the status quo is eating and not freezing to death in the winter. green energy cannot power a nation. it hasn’t worked anywhere else. in fact, Europe and Australia are giving up on it.
Bill Buckley would turn over in his grave if he ever found out what the lightweight Lowry has done to the National Review.
Lowry’s also gonna be eating a helluva lot of crow… clueless about how clueless he is, he essentially told Mann to bring it on.
I haven’t had as much anticipation waiting for a predictable result since I don’t know when. I only wish it would make it to trial and the judgment against that it merits.
Lowry’s gonna bail and settle but it will be on Mann’s terms, including a complete retraction and admission plus… hmmmm…. what else?
lol, keep dreaming.
“If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.
And this is where you come in. If Mann goes through with it, we’re probably going to call on you to help fund our legal fight and our investigation of Mann through discovery. If it gets that far, we may eventually even want to hire a dedicated reporter to comb through the materials and regularly post stories on Mann.”
Rich Lowry
8/22/12
NRO is threatening Dr Mann with a clearly malicious and illegal action.
nope. they are stating the obvious. mann fabricated the hockey stick graph by weighting only the data that fit the graph in significant proportions. all data that didn’t fit the graph was given an insignificant weighting.
this is why every study of the mwp shows the graph to be a fraud. this is why statistical experts publicly showed the graph to be a fraud.
This statement has nothing to do with any graph.
Rich Lowry threatened to take material obtained at discovery, and publish it for profit.
Any judge in America would have chunks of little Rich in his stool.
you don’t know much about the law, do you? if material recovered through discovery is unsealed, then it is public information. if it is sealed by the judge, which has to be requested and is not always granted, then it remains private information.
the rules are simple. and rich lowry is free to publish anything he wants, subject to ruling by the court AFTER the information is exchanged between parties.
Spung. Wow. A real live one. Not a single reference to back up his claims. Mann refused anyone to see the data?
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2011/11/dr-michael-manns-data-is-available-on.html
Yea, its so hard you have to Google it. Clever hiding place.
you obviously never bothered to look at the “data”. there are no equations. there is no tree ring data. there are no weightings.
What data would you like to look at?
Here is some tree ring data. Its hiding in plain sight. Did you look for it?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6678/fig_tab/392779a0_F1.html
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html
So you can explain how more than a dozen researchers, including those supported by skeptics searching for a contradictory outcome all came to the same conclusions with graphs supporting the original data? To wit, that temperatures in the last 30 years have risen above those of the last 1000 years and at an unprecedented rate.
I suppose we should ask, where is your data? I have not seen a single reference. Go ahead. No one is stopping you. Show us your careful research. All I see is massive amounts of freely available data and information from scientists.
Are you deluded? That’s the worst job of hiding data and conspiracy I have ever seen.
So show us your data. You already blogged three times and not an iota of reference.
Make it a dare. Quote a peer reviewed source and discuss it with references.
you are mistaken. keith briffa came to OPPOSITE conclusions. here is his study:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/28/manns-hockey-stick-disappears-and-crus-briffa-helps-make-the-mwp-live-again-by-pointing-out-bias-in-ther-data/
briffa’s data was supposedly used by mann to construct the hockey stick. however, the data was EXTREMELY cherry-picked. briffa will destroy mann’s credibility in testimony during discovery.
what kind of dare did you have in mind? I live in the Houston area. I don’t know where you are, but I enjoy eating a nice dinner as much as anyone else, I suppose. we could set up some type of wager for dinner, if you are in the mood.
there is a good variety of tex-mex, Italian, oriental, seafood and various other more exotic tastes available in the area. and I won’t have a problem footing the bill if your hero dr. mann turns out to be an innocent victim (although that’s, in my opinion, as likely as looking up at random and seeing an airborne boar).
http://youtu.be/IotGLnXvaEk
They know the science.
Rick, The underlying physics is extremely well understood. Surface temperature data trends aside, including those formulated by former “skeptic” Richard Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, can you explain how the planet’s energy flow will be balanced unless the molecules in the atmosphere and on the surface are emitting enough radiation to overcome the added resistance to outbound radiation imposed by GHG’s? Molecules emit more energy by being more energetic (hotter). The Earth is accumulating heat, a lot of heat, only 2.3% of which is added to the atmosphere. There is short term natural variability, primarily oceanic oscillations which submerge and resurface heat. When the surface is cooler, the Earth is accumulating more heat than when the surface is warmer. Eventually, equilibrium will be achieved when the net energy imbalance is zero.
the underlying physics are not well understood, because the contribution of solar activity is not completely quantified. the avg global surface temp has not changed in almost seventeen years. virtually every temperature model designed by climate researchers completely missed the current standstill.
the effect of the sun’s fluctuations on global temperature is well-known, and somewhat quantified. the relationship between sunspot activity and historical global temps is documented fact. we are currently entering what appears to be a significant minimum of solar activity, and global temps have crested and decreased accordingly in the past decade and a half. this is beyond dispute.
climate trend prediction research is anything but settled science. and the mwp is established history. there is no question that co2 levels were higher in the past and avg global temps were higher in the past. and yet, no runaway greenhouse effect occurred.
it is beyond question that mann’s hockey stick graph is historically inaccurate. this case is about exposing the fraud that mann knowingly committed, with public funding.
Rick, Your response to previous comments, as well as mine, makes it clear that we’re going to not make any progress on science. Therefore, I have a human nature question. Why would Michael Mann, or any prominent scientist, commit blatant verifiable fraud in a field that is being studied by thousands of other scientists? It’s not like we’re talking about cold fusion here.
Based on his twitters, Facebook posts and language, it appears his ego is completely out of control. he even claimed to be a Nobel prize winner, which was an absolute lie. he routinely uses unprofessional conduct and language when forced into discussions of his methods. he has compared himself to Copernicus. the Penn State inquiry into his methods was an absolute joke, which only fed his out-of-touch perception of his “genius”.
it appears that he is a huge, arrogant, self-delusional, ego-maniac. it also appears that he was goaded into filing this lawsuit. (funnily, even he claims that as part of his pleadings.) the discovery process will totally destroy his career and reputation.
the only thing I can figure is that, since he was successful before in keeping his correspondence and computer code secret by claiming privilege, he thinks he can get away with it again. this is a ridiculous mistake and it sounds like the typical mistake made by many other ego-centric personalities in the past. George A. Custer comes to mind, among many other similar personalities.
basically, he drank his own Kool-Aid, and believed his own publicity. now he will come crashing down to reality and it won’t be pretty.
it is completely and absolutely 100% impossible that his hockey stick has an y accuracy. that is totally out of the question. there is an overwhelming mountain of evidence against him in the form of peer-reviewed research. there’s no way he can win this case. there’s no way he can prove he knows something the entire rest of the scientific community doesn’t know. his methods have already been dissected by statisticians and proven to be fraudulent. why else would skeptics have baited him into this case? you don’t see it happening with any other warmist researchers.
the rulings to date in this case are meaningless. no evidence has been offered one way or the other. the judge who heard the pleadings up until now is arguably the worst judge in the d.c. court system, based on publicly published feedback. and that judge just went bye-bye. in case you haven’t seen the ratings and comments for her, I can link them upon request. very enlightening.
anyway, it all boils down to the weight of the evidence. whichever side provides the greater weight of evidence wins. this will be a long, expensive, protracted, drawn-out battle that could easily take years. even a verdict won’t end the case, because the losing side, in either scenario, will appeal this case at least one level, if not more.
so don’t count on a quick resolution.
Oh, the humanity! If what you say is true, you have to admit that His Evilness was so ingenious that he tricked otherwise credible scientific organizations into believing his scam.
that’s not what I said. I said he is an extremely arrogant, egotistical person. if you knew anything about academia, you would know it is full of people like that. and occasionally, they start believing their own press. it is a very common story.
Hi Rick,
‘…virtually every temperature model designed by climate researchers completely missed the current standstill.’
If you look at individual model runs, there actually are pauses like this here and there. What you have to remember is that no one model run is any more likely to mimic reality than any other. So the runs that have a 16 year ‘pause’ from the late 1990’s to present are just as probable as the runs where temperatures accelerated immensely during such. Now when you lay all these different runs out on a graph, an ‘area under the curve’ effect is created, and our minds tend to interpret this area as a solid, curvilinear area that marches steadily upwards with no pauses. But in reality, any path around the constellation of runs is equally possible (that is if the variables in reality track their respective variables in the model credibly; after all these are projections that say ‘if conditions are like ‘this’, then ‘this’ is probably what will happen, and are not venerable predictions of the future), as are the pauses and accelerations that occur.
‘…and the mwp is established history…’
Perhaps you could give us a little history of the climate of the American Breadbasket (i.e. where a lot of our food is grown) during the medieval warm period? MWP – good for Europe maybe, but not so good for America.
yeah, but that’s not what the models predicted. we are three months away from a 17 year stretch minimum of no avg global temp increase. by now, every model’s predicted temp progression has slipped out of the error range, when compared to actual historical data.
and why do you mention the mwp and America in the same breath? the only significant farming done in north America was in Greenland. there was no American breadbasket. it was completely wooded or used as pasture by plains-dwelling wild animals. we’re talking about a pre-Christopher Columbus time frame.
if you are looking at today’s crop yields for the American breadbasket, you will find record-breaking harvests. I know because my family owns farmland in Illinois. if you don’t believe me, look at usda forecasts.
Hi Rick,
‘and why do you mention the mwp and America in the same breath?’
Maybe I wasn’t being clear. Charles suggested I try a picture, so here goes:
http://www.hiltonheadadventurer.com/PDF_backups/LongTermAridityWest.JPG
[The picture I wanted to use was behind a ‘subscription’ wall to access old articles in Science. The ‘subscription’ is free, but it’s annoying as you have to register. So I cut and pasted my picture to my website to make it easy on every one. ]
I read you were from TX, so I chose this particular material based upon such: In the article the ‘West’ is defined as the western half of America, including TX. So what we have during the MWP, are multi-decade long droughts hitting the American West over and over that make our recent set of American droughts (last several years/last decade/anomalies in the last 100 years) pale in comparison.
Now the graph is just an average for a very large area, and doesn’t say anything about local conditions (other than, on average they were more prone to drought), but also during the MWP the northwest part of America (Washington, Northern Idaho, part of Montana) the climate was getting wetter, so such somewhat infers that the southwest was getting hit even harder than average.
Thus, if we were to accept that places like TX track the average credibly, and that we are now getting back up into those MWP temperatures again presently, would you not be a bit apprehensive regarding industries in TX that rely on water, such as farming and fracking?
And further, these mega droughts that happened during the MWP in the western part of America would also creep easterly: to this day, in parts of Nebraska you can dig down past a small vegetative layer of the soil and find sand dunes from the MWP.
And it’s not just climate change that should make us start thinking more conservatively about the future; it’s that this is happening whilst resource scarcity is starting to play out.
thanks for the info. sorry if I misunderstood you. i’m off for pizza then i’ll study it.
Psst Andrew. Try pictures.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/GW_Components_1024.jpg
pictures of what? forests and untilled grasslands in Midwestern America, during the mwp?
pictures of flat temperature graphs for the last 16 plus years?
pictures of model temperature predictions that are outside their own error boundaries?
Thanks Charles – see my latest post above for a picture!
“virtually every temperature model designed by climate researchers completely missed the current standstill.”
This is clearly a statement made by someone who doesn’t understand the basics of modeling — and in this case, it’s a failure to understand the difference between a single realization (the output of a single model run), which *will* show such “pauses”, and an ensemble average (where the “pauses”, because they show up at different times in individual runs, will tend to average out).
The model results typically published in journal articles and the IPCC literature are *ensemble averages* of many individual model runs. The reason that “pauses” don’t tend to be seen in ensemble averages should be obvious to anyone who understands the basics.
The judge dismissed the defendants claims with disdain:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/08/19/mann-v-national-review-new-plaintiffs-briefs/
In view of the defendants’ initial public bravado regarding Dr. Mann, their latest attempt to avoid a trial on this matter rings hollow–and basic principles of equity and fairness should estop them from now seeking an appeal. Defendants baited Dr. Mann to file this lawsuit. After he asked for a retraction and apology, the defendants told their readers that they would welcome a lawsuit because it would give them the opportunity to take discovery from Dr. Mann and his colleagues. They boasted they would hire dedicated staff to sift through that discovery and make it publicly available.1 They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from their readers to pursue this discovery.2 They proclaimed they would “kick” Dr. Mann’s “legal heinie” in court.3
But now, after an impartial court has ruled that their attacks on Dr. Mann crossed the line, defendants are running for cover. Faced now with the prospect of financial liability for their gleeful tirades, defendants do not want discovery, as it would involve discovery into their own conduct. And they certainly do not want to face a jury of their peers. They are hoping to escape by cloaking their conduct in an arrogant interpretation of the First Amendment without the essential rigor of discovery into their knowing and reckless falsehoods. Plainly aware that such discovery will boomerang to their own backsides, the defendants are looking for an escape. But it is too late for that, and defendants’ hit and run tactics should not be countenanced. They asked for this lawsuit. They got it.
As the judge says, why the reluctance to go to court after bragging about it? NR was spoiling to get Mann in court. Now that he takes them up, they turn tail and run.
lol, the judge dismissed the claims because the judge refused to admit she made ridiculous mistakes and couldn’t keep the differing facts of the two cases straight.
read the order again. the judge said, in essense, “yeah, I screwed up the facts, but it doesn’t matter!”
lol… like I said, this case has years to go before it is over. and there is a mountain of evidence yet to come in. we haven’t even started the discovery process. and discovery is mann’s worst nightmare. the defendants NOTHING to lose by discovery. mann has everything to lose.
nobody has turned tail and run. you obviously don’t understand what is happening here.