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”).