Michael Mann Blemishes Himself In Austria …German Scientists: “Can No Longer Be Taken Seriously”

German climate science critics Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, authors of the book: The Neglected Sun, have a comment at their ‘Die kalte Sonne’ site where they criticize Dr. Michael Mann for making reality-detached claims.

Hockey stick inventor Michael Mann makes himself look foolish in an ORF-Interview: “One thing they all have in common: The end of the curve have a steep rise”

(Translated/edited by P Gosselin)

On May 25, 2015 Austrian public broadcaster ORF was compelled to present the inventor of the now fully discredited Hockey Stick chart (Figure 1) in an interview:

The temperature rise is unprecedented
The ‘Hockey Stick’ is the most well-known and controversial curve in climate science: It shows how massively man is impacting the Earth’s climate. Michael Mann is the creator of this chart: In an interview he explains how he arrived at his discovery.”

Nonsense. The curve is false, and so how can it show how much man is impacting the climate? This is a totally faulty logical performance by the Austrian ORF. Ten years later the error was uncovered and more realistic reconstructions were rolled out, for example one by Ljungqvist 2010 (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Hockey stick chart from 1998/2001.

Figure 2: Temperature reconstruction as to Ljungqvist 2010. RWP=Roman Warm Period, MWP=Medieval Warm Period, CWP=Modern  Warm Period, LIA=Little Ice Age, DACP=Dark Ages Cold Period.

It is already quite frightening the nonsense the ORF expects its audience to believe:

science.ORF.at: The Hockey Stick developed from being a level headed temperature curve to a real phenomenon in the Internet. What does the chart show?

Mann: We’ve been measuring the global temperature on the planet with thermometers for about 100 years. In this period the atmosphere warmed up about 1°C. If we want to know just how unusual this warming has been, then we have to look much further back in the past. This can be done only by evaluating the natural archives – tree rings, corals, ice cores and ediments, which help tell us how the climate in the past developed. This is precisely what we did at the end of the 1990s. The result from this: the most recent warming has been unprecedented. The temperature curve of the Hockey Stick begins about 1000 years ago and falls off during the Middele Ages until the so-called Little Ice Age. But starting in the 20th century, the curve suddenly shoots upwards. The temperature is now rising faster than ever before. That’s the blade of the hockey stick.”

Now take a look at Figure 2. Is the warming of the 20th century really unprecendented as Mann claims? Why was it as warm 1000 years ago as it is today? Now comes one of the highlights of the interview:

science.ORF.at: In the 2007 IPCC report in addition to your works there was also a dozen other papers from other teams mentioned. The temperature curves of your colleagues however do not always look like hockey sticks.

Mann: True, but there’s one thing they all have in common: The ends of all the curves all shoot steeply upwards.”

Ha ha. Mann here is right. But this is not what the issue is about. The warming after the LIttle Ice Age is recognized by everyone. Mann is being criticized for his depiction of the 1000-1900 A.D. period, which he claims was pretty much flat. Michael Mann today will not find a single one of his colleagues who supports that.

The ORF is not totally awful when it comes to this issue. They ask the question of all questions:

science.ORF.at: You just mentioned that the recent warming is unprecedented. However there have been periods in the Earth’s history that were as warm, and indeed without the impact of man. Why?

Mann: Of course that is true. Millions of years ago there was no ice on the Earth’s surface. Back then it was warmer than today. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was even probably five times higher than it is now. However that was the result of geological processes taking place on scales of 100 million years. Today’s changes on the other hand are one million times more rapid. It is not about the absolute temperature. It is about the enormous speed at which the temperature is changing. Natural adpatation at this speed simply cannot keep up. That’s worrisome because the seven billion people on this planet are dependent on a stable climate.”

One look at the temperature reconstruction of Figure 2 tells us: Michael Mann can no longer be taken seriously. The ORF had to have known this already. Going back millions of years and large timescales is completely unnecessary. Without blushing Mann simply denies the Medieval Warm Period. The ORF gives Mann a free pass and lets him get by. What an embarassment.

27 responses to “Michael Mann Blemishes Himself In Austria …German Scientists: “Can No Longer Be Taken Seriously””

  1. Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic)

    Climate extremists like Mann hold a very extreme view and like all extremists they don’t like being reminded that they are the extreme.

  2. DirkH

    As in Germany, Austria has far bigger problems (also created by the political caste). ORF just continues warmunist lies out of habit. State media apparatchiks won’t be able to change their ways til the moment they find themselves unemployed, when the EU state media will be collectively shut down.

  3. Dr Tim Ball-Climatologist
  4. Graeme No.3

    Little Michael came to town,
    doing his favourite trick.
    He stuck a splinter in his thumb,
    and called it a hockey stick.

  5. AndyG55

    “In this period the atmosphere warmed up about 1°C”

    No Mickey Mouse, we measured the surface temperature which are badly affected by urban heat situations, airports and homogenisation mal-adjustments etc.

    We actually have no idea how much the surface has warmed, if any, because we don’t have accurate enough measuring system, certain not 100 years ago.

    And sorry but I do not believe that anybody has the ability to compile a temperature measurement for any major part of the globe even now to nearest part of a degree, let alone back in the MWP or earlier.

  6. Hugh

    “Without blushing Mann simply denies the Medieval Warm Period”

    Yes, and he also severely downplays the holocenic optimum. Also note that global and NH temperature reconstructions are purposefully mixed. NH temperatures are represented as global when an up-shooting graph appears, and NH temperatures are an anomaly when a zig-zag appears.

    The fact that it has been warmer or equally warm geologically very recently, is denied by him, motivated by his political advocacy.

  7. mwhite

    Am I right in believing that the Mann hockey stick is still not reproducible due to a lack of data and methodology?

    1. DirkH

      There’s one similarity and one difference between Mann and Gauss: Both invented new mathematical methods. The difference is that Gauss published them.

  8. Dan Pangburn

    Proof that CO2 has no effect on climate and identification of the two factors that do cause reported climate change (sunspot number is the only independent variable) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com (new update with 5-year running-average smoothing of measured average global temperature (AGT), the near-perfect explanation of AGT since before 1900; R^2 = 0.97+).

  9. tsmith

    Problem is your figure 2 excludes the +1C warming that has happened in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 100 years. It only shows about 0.4C warming. If figure 2 is an accurate depiction of global temperature in the last 2000 years it implies that global temperatures are now off the top of the graph.

    Whereas if you don’t agree that the graph is an accurate depiction of global temperature in the last 2000 years you can’t make any claims about how warm it was 2000 years ago.

    Either way you can’t claim it was as warm 2000 years ago as today.

  10. sod

    The first graph shows northern hemisphere, the second excludes the tropics. I would call that a trick.

    The MWP was not global and “recovery from the little ice age” is not a driving force of climate.

    I think people will have to try harder to contradict Mann!

    1. DirkH

      “The MWP was not global ”

      So you say it was local. Ok. And you say that the global temperature average shows no warming in that time. Ok.

      Then, you must answer the question: Which region was offsetting the warmth in Europe by being colder than the average, and why did this happen?

      Please address the same question with regards to the Roman Warm time, the Minoan Warm time, and the Holocene climate optimum,

      TIA.

    2. AndyG55
      1. sod

        that global graph is horrible and shows the main problem with the “MWP”:

        http://www.hyzercreek.com/MWP-LIA.html

        those warm periods around the globe simply did not happen at the same time. You will see graphs marked with MWP before and centuries after the year 1000. you can not just simply add those together.

        here is my simple question: in which decades did the global MWP happen then?

        1. AndyG55

          Did not happen at the same time..

          omg, you truly are a drone aren’t you.

          Its a period.. it varied in timing around the global like all climate events do and proxies will vary in their timing as well.

          And your last question really highlights your absolute stupidity on the matter.

        2. AndyG55

          I must say that if you really expect all the different proxy dating to align, then you are even more of a scientific numpty than even I thought you were.

    3. AndyG55

      Also, I suggest you read through some of the links on

      http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/subject_m.php

      And

      http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/subject_l.php

      And please, learn something for once. !!!

      1. sod

        it is utterly impossible to learn anything from CO2″science”.

        as long as that site denies to link to the original papers and abstracts (which mostly contradict what CO2″science” makes out of it).

        I would call that out as a pretty bad form of trick!

        just compare this (3rd paper from the global MWP site)

        http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N14/C3.php

        with the real paper:

        http://lustiag.pp.fi/__CC-Art/__FinnishRes/2009%20Helama%20et%20al%20Geology%20vol%2037.pdf

        1. AndyG55

          I believe it is utter impossible for you to learn anything.

          But hey.. as you have no inclination to even try…..

        2. AndyG55

          And what do you mean, they don’t link? The name of the paper is there. Links can change. Find it yourself.. pretty easy obviously.

          And they say
          “Our reconstruction covers the classical climatic
          periods of the Little Ice Age (LIA), the
          Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), and the
          Dark Ages Cold Period (DACP)”

          Well doh ! Medieval climate anomaly.. what’s that??

          Your comments are, as usual a disingenuous load of crap !!

        3. DirkH

          sod 5. August 2015 at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Reply
          “as long as that site denies to link to the original papers and abstracts (which mostly contradict what CO2″science” makes out of it).

          I would call that out as a pretty bad form of trick!”

          Careful, tax money looter. You have just accused all the regime’s journalists of tricking. You don’t wanna accuse all your fellow looters of tricking.

          1. AndyG55

            I doubt that sod has ever seen a proper scientific reference before in his life.

    4. David Johnson

      Says you. Fortunately you are totally wrong wrong as usual

  11. Lemon

    But Mann’s figuring took a temperature from a single tree and applied it to the entire world. Meanwhile, while some alarmists are denying that a pause in warming has occurred, others are explaining that natural events are causing it. The lack of logic in the alarmist camp is absurd to the level of campy humour.

  12. sod

    ” Which region was offsetting the warmth in Europe by being colder than the average, and why did this happen?”

    you are asking the false question. You should start by asking the question: Why do we see to graphs with a different base region place together, so that people get a completely false impression?

    but to give you some answer:
    the rest of the world must not have completely compensated the mwp in europe. But if you look at a realistic graph, you would not see the MWP being higher than temperatures are today. and then that whole story would no longer make any sense.

    1. DirkH

      sod, you are fighting some rearguard action by putting words together that look like sentences but are devoid of meaning.

      It’s all about the loot, right? Gotta increase from the 24 bn EUR a year German subsidies, right?

      Now I got news for you, another gang is in town, the illegal immigration mafia, and they’re already at 60 bn EUR a year for Germany, all costs added together, you’ve been BESTED. And THAT’S why warmunism will die – the crooks are all switching to the new scheme.

  13. A Safe Pair of Hands by Mark Steyn | RUTHFULLY YOURS

    […] Indeed. You’d be surprised how many scientists say things like this about Dr Mann and his famous global-warming “hockey stick”. In fact, I’ve compiled a brand new book on the subject – although, alas, Doctors Lüning and Vahrenholt’s pithy summation is too late to make the cut. Their observation was prompted by a characteristically shifty and dissembling interview Mann gave to ORF – Austria’s BBC. Pierre Gosselin provides a helpful translation: […]

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