REVEALED: Dr. Mann's letter to Rep. Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield - 7/15/2005

A walk down memory lane in honor of the Paris Climate Conference, (well and also for my pal AL with his hate-on for Dr. Mann and rejection of climate proxy work in general as described in the comments thread at Prof Ivar Giaever's pathetic YouTube PseudoScience talk), I'm going to reprint a few posts I'd originally written for my Citizenschallenge Blog a couple years back since the information they hold is as valid and relevant today as it was then.
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Here is an interesting letter that Dr. Mann wrote in response to a series of questions he received from the ranking members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Oversight and Investigations committee.  

The sad thing is that in hindsight it seems as though both US Representative Whitfield and US Representative Barton didn't read a single word of this letter and instead continued steamrolling their personal agenda of attacking the science and ignoring the evidence.

I reprint it complete, 
though I have taken the liberty of adding paragraph breaks and highlights. 

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July 15, 2005

From:
Michael E. Mann, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
Director of Earth System Science Center Department of Meteorology
The Pennsylvania State University

To:
Joe Barton, Chairman
House Committee on Energy and Commerce 
Ed Whitfield, Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 
2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Barton and Chairman Whitfield:

This letter responds to your letter of June 23, 2005, which seeks information on issues relating to my research on the historical record of temperatures and climate change.1 Your letter lays out a number of “concerns” about the research my colleagues and I have conducted about global warming. Your letter also inquires about the role I played in the preparation of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (the so-called “TAR”).

Discovered and revealed! - Where the climate codes and data have been hiding

Continuing my walk down memory lane in honor of the Paris Climate Conference, (well and also for my pal AL with his hate-on for Dr. Mann and rejection of climate proxy data in general as described in the comments thread at Prof Ivar Giaever's pathetic YouTube PseudoScience talk), I'm going to reprint a few posts I'd originally written for my Citizenschallenge Blog a couple years back since the information they hold is a valid and relevant today as it was then.

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A lot of folks have been convinced climatologists are hiding data - that's why it was interesting to came across this list while I was compiling my previous post.  It doesn't quite jive with the steady stream of accusations and innuendo folks like, Ivar Gaiever and ClimateAudit's Mr. McIntyre keep sending out: 

"I have an ongoing campaign to improve standards of data archiving, disclosure and due diligence - which are independent of any particular substantive points on paleoclimate studies. I have no idea why the “Hockey Team”, as they styled themselves, have elected to withhold data and methods from scrutiny; it’s an unwinnable position, but they’ve done so and I’ll continue to criticize them on this point." (ClimateAudit, Blog Rules and Road Map)

I think a review of the following list makes clear that such talk is political dirty tricks - and not a reflection of reality or the situation within the climate science community.

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Data Sources

Filed under: — group @ 27 November 2009

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

This page is a catalogue that will be kept up to date pointing to selected sources of code and data related to climate science. Please keep us informed of any things we might have missed, or any updates to the links that are needed.

HotWhopper.com's Climate history highlights from old Australian newspapers

A walk down memory lane.    
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This morning I awoke to an interesting article over at HotWhopper.com, it's a reproduction of a 1884 newspaper article in the Australian newspaper "Border Watch" titled "Cold And Heat Near The Poles."  In it the author discusses the discovery of fossil traces of tropical flora in the Arctic and the implications that Earth's climate was variable.

It then went on to discuss Earth's early atmosphere, it's interaction with the lithosphere, and the ability of certain gases to retain heat trying to escape into the cold vacuum of space.  The article ends with:

"... Many ingenious hypotheses have been proposed to account for the warmer climate of earlier times, but are at best unsatisfactory; and it appears to me that the true solution of the problem may be found in the constitution of the early atmosphere, when considered in the light of Dr. Tyndall's beautiful researches on radiant heat. 

The Other Dr.Mann Court Case

And since I'm on a roll {and because I allowed my original project for the day to be thoroughly side-tracked, by another denialist challenge over at SkepticForum} I may as well add one more SkepticalScience.com "Repost", this one written by Dana Nuccitelli, titled "Mann Fights Back Against Denialist Abuse" - it looks at the other Dr. Mann court case.  

The case where Dr. Mann finally said, enough is enough.  And decided that the malicious slander the Competitive Enterprise Institute fabricated and that the National Review gave top billing to, in their ongoing campaign to befuddle and confuse the public, needed to be exposed and punished. (see here and here for updates from this past summer.)

Without further ado and with much thanks to Dana and John Cook and all the other volunteers who have made SkepticalScience.com the number one source for non-scientists to become familiar with climate science... as opposed to the misleading and distracting sound-bites our right-wing prefers, here it is:

Mann Fights Back Against Denialist Abuse (via Skeptical Science)

Posted on 28 July 2012 by dana1981 At Skeptical Science, we prefer to stick to discussions of the scientific literature and body of evidence.  However, for the long time there has been a systematic abuse of climate scientists from climate denialists…

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Investigating Dr. Michael Mann... a supplement

To supplement my previous post, here's a list of investigations into Dr. Mann and allegations stemming from the break in and hacking of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, courtesy of SkepticalScience.com.  I finish with a DeSmogBlog profile of the American Tradition Institute:

What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?

Michael Mann's continuing saga, Virginia FOIA case moves forward

Well, the climate science "skeptics" have unleashed another flurry substance-less claims and attacks on Dr. Michael Mann in light of the recent court decision allowing the American Tradition Institute's (and a member of  Virginia's House of Delegates, Del Marshall's) lawsuit seeking pretty much any and all working material related to the research of Dr. Michael Mann and his team.  

It doesn't matter to them that the data upon which his studies are based is and has been available, see: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/tools/tools.php

It doesn't matter to them that Mann et al's studies have been investigated many times over, see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm
also see: 
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/22/301163/nsf-investigation-exonerates-hockey-stick-scientist-michael-mann/
and:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/22/300821/nsf-inspector-general-investigation-michael-mann/

It doesn't matter that subsequent studies using different proxies and methods have reported the same basic story, see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-or-hockey-league.html

All that seems to matter to them, is that business leaders and politicians and the public remain as ignorant as possible about what we are doing to our life sustaining climate system.
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From the Washington Post story by Tom Jackman:

Prince William FOIA case on global warming headed for Virginia Supreme Court 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/10/09/prince-william-foia-case-on-global-warming-headed-for-virginia-supreme-court/ 

"... Richard C. Kast and Madelyn F. Wessel, U.Va.’s lawyers, argued that Judge Sheridan got it right when he ruled that the university had properly interpreted FOIA. They acknowledged that there was no judicial precedent on the FOIA exemption, but that “the policy of open government under the act is not ‘absolute,’” citing more than 100 exemptions in Virginia’s FOIA law. 

They noted that the Institute and Marshall challenge the judge’s interpretation of “proprietary,” but that the conservatives “offer no alternative definition or explanation as to why the plain meaning of the term should not apply.” Plain meaning, in U.Va.’s view, being “a thing or property owned or in the possession of one who manages and controls them.” 

Mann said in an e-mail to me that “I believe Judge Sheridan’s ruling protecting faculty research correspondence is correct and is precisely what Sen. Thomas Michie intended when he proposed his legislation to amend Virginia’s FOIA law and the legislature enacted in 1984 to enhance the ability of Virginia’s public colleges and university’s to protect the scholarly research endeavor.” 

But late last month the Supreme Court agreed to take the case, which Schnare said happens in about 10 percent of the civil cases appealed to them."

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For a review of what Dr. Mann has been put through, see:

Timeline: Legal Harassment of Climate Scientist Michael Mann

http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/va-ag-timeline.html

For a look at the players in this most recent episode:

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the 'information attacks' on climate scientists?

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html

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For a bit more on the tactics used by the contrarians, see:

Climate Skeptics Try To Spin Penn State Exoneration of Dr. Michael Mann Into “Whitewash”

http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-skeptics-try-spin-penn-state-exoneration-dr-michael-mann-“whitewash”

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Michael Mann, hounded researcher

http://www.skepticalscience.com/MichaelMann.html

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NSF IG report on Michael Mann investigation: “No research misconduct. Case closed.” Don't bother telling Rick Perry.

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/08/22/nsf-ig-report-on-michael-mann-investigation/

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To finish it seems appropriate to allow Dr. Mann to speak for himself:

Michael Mann responds to the “false and misleading claims” in the error-riddled, defamatory WSJ piece by Jeffrey Ball and Keith Johnson

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/02/26/205566/michael-mann-false-and-misleading-claims-wall-street-journal-oversimplify-piece-by-jeffrey-ball-and-keith-johnson/

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Michael E. Mann on Climate Change and Muzzling Science CBC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34jLLTq15o

Published on Mar 29, 2012

MICHAEL E. MANN Physicist, Climatologist, Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, author of "The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines" was George's guest on March 28, 2012

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Michael Mann: Confronting the Climate Change Challenge - 

Conversations from Penn State

Published on Apr 12, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06DdPb_DFo0

Michael Mann was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the team of scientists that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Mann discusses his work with the panel, his current outlook on the future of the planet, and his new book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.

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TEDxPSU - Michael Mann - 

A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElI-XVGHCHs

Uploaded on Dec 5, 2011

Michael Mann is a professor in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, a climatologist, and the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. Michael is best known for his extensive background and research in the field of paleoclimatology. This work led to Michael's graph of temperature trends over the last thousand years, popularly coined as the "hockey stick graph" because of its resemblance to the sporting equipment. 

The graph has received acclaim and criticism since its publishing. He has received many awards and honors including, but not limited to, the Outstanding Scientific Paper Award by NOAA in 2002 and also was named one of the 50 Leading Visionaries in Science and Technology by Scientific American. 

Michael is also one of the founders of RealClimate.org, a highly acclaimed climate science website that was chosen in 2005 as one of the top 25 "Science and Technology" websites by Scientific American and as one of the top 15 "green" websites by Time Magazine in 2008. Michael's educational background includes an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale.

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Climate Science Watch - breaking news on Mann defamation case

The Climate Science Watch has posted the following breaking news regarding Judge Natalia Combs Greene rejection of another motion to dismiss the defamation suit against the National Review 
(& the Competitive Enterprise Institute):
 "Judge denies National Review's Motion to Reconsider ruling in Michael Mann's defamation case"

Though first, here's a little introduce to the CSW:

CSW History

Climate Science Watch was initiated in 2005 after founder and director Rick Piltz went public about the Bush Administration’s political interference in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s climate change reports. White House censorship and misuse of climate change communication had undermined the scientific integrity of policymaking and contributed to a failure of preparedness to deal with the impacts of climate disruption. After his resignation from the federal program, Rick teamed up with the Government Accountability Project (GAP) in Washington, DC, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization. Climate Science Watch is now a sponsored project of GAP.

CSW’s investigation, analysis, communication, and reform advocacy has combined the concerns that have driven it since 2005: protecting freedom of communication by federal scientists; combating the global warming denial machine; holding government accountable for using climate science with integrity; and the policy mission of climate change preparedness.

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Judge denies National Review's Motion to Reconsider ruling in Michael Mann's defamation case 

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Climate Science Watch 

"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." 

Anthony Watts, about those AGW-critical "credible theories" and "best explanations"?

Anthony Watts featured an interesting innuendo recently, basically suggesting that Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics have indeed developed some "credible theories" and "best explanations" supporting their claim that around 97% of active climatologists are wrong about their understanding of our global heat distribution engine, also known as our planet's climate system.

Mann on mathematics, alcohol, and ‘proof’ 

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Anthony Watts

Dr. Mann v Steyn, NR, CEI lawsuit, botched ruling? Who says?

Here's a belated update on the lawsuit Dr. Mann initiated last October against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and The National Review.  For background see this Facebook post by Dr. Mann.

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Michael E. Mann  |  Facebook  |  October 23, 2012 

Lawsuit filed against The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute 10/22/12  

Today, the case of Dr. Michael E. Mann vs. The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Mann, a Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has instituted this lawsuit against the two organizations, along with two of their authors, based upon their false and defamatory statements accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky. 

EXPOSED - The RealClimate.org's "McKitrick and McIntyre" Files

This is a repost from over at citizenschallenge.blogspot.com

by rights it belongs here at the blog dedicated to the crazy makers of denial.
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Traveling around the blogosphere these past years I keep running into the same misinformation being repeated based on the "authority" of an economist and a mining prospector turned mining engineer with a mathematical background.  Two men who have been clearly motivated by the political implications of climate science.

Basically they are dead set against any sort of limitations or restrictions being put on carbon fuels and the global warming greenhouse gases we are adding to our thin atmosphere.  Unfortunately they are so politically motivated that they have tossed Scientific Standards out the window and have adopted the ruthless standards of power-politics where any dirty trick and misrepresentation is part of the 'rules of engagement.'

Unfortunately, this global warming situation requires a commitment to listening and learning or Catastrophic Global Warming will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

In order to shed light on the many mistakes and misrepresentations Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre are guilty of I have culled the search results over at RealClimate.org to produce this voluminous post.