Climategate: Can a Graph Tell a Lie?

Our fact-checker sorted through dozens of graphs and data sets to find the truth about rising temperatures in the wake of the Climategate scandal.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• climate
• climategate
• global warming
• science
• graphs
• charts
• Michael Mann
• Keith Briffa
• Mother Jones news

[genettej]

Jaeah Lee, your video misses out the main problem with the tree ring data. If tree rings after 1960 do not correlate to measured temperatures, how can scientists be sure that tree rings from hundreds of years ago correlate with particular temperatures? The correct, scientific, answer to this problem is to stop using ANY of the tree ring data in temperature reconstructions. Instead, these scientists ignored this problem and simply chopped the data that raised questions out of their graphs.

[IskurBlast]

This is really a sad excuse for fact checking. You ultimately just ended up taking Brifa's word for it. What kind of fact checking is that? It’s just hyperbole.

[Desertphile]

"...in the wake of the Climategate scandal."

That's asinine. There was no "climategate scandal:" it never happened.

[vengencefrom1979]

current CO2 levels are at 389 ppm and rising. it wont be long before antarctica begins to thaw as fast as greenland currently is, which btw is rising out of the sea at a rate of 1 inch per year. when antarctica thaws enough it too will rise out of the sea. it is connected to every tectonic plate around the world and will crack the earths crust. this isnt doomsday bull, this is science, and quite likely the worse threat facing mankind.

[Vahtacen]

When I clicked on this, i went: "Oh, oh! Prepare for the deniers!"

[pointyhead1]

@genettej ... yes, chopped off and hid what they did, starting with main public presentation of the trick in Jones WMO1999. going forward...the hiding became slightly more sophisticated over time.

[clt510]

Some researchers also truncated their data series, replaced it with their temperature series (after shifting axes to make the two agree), then smoothed over it. Without explaining that they had done any of this. This is Mann's "trick" and it's an awesome act of scientific deception.

Some believers can be objective (see Jon Stewart's "hide the decline" show).

[clt510]

@KimOyhus-the argument just is not that difficult to follow: Comparison with temperature data is meant to validate the tree ring data; so failure to validate needs to be reported; CO2 doesn't explain the divergence (non-temperature limited growth is the most likely explanation); the divergence occurs both late and and early; Briffa hides both the late divergence and an early one (CO2 can't explain than either).