A curiosity from Slingo's paper
Jan 5, 2012
Bishop Hill

Here's something else from Julia Slingo's briefing to central government that caught my eye:

Haven't temperatures been higher in the past? Isn't the hockey stick
graph flawed?

In 2006, the US National Academies of Science carried out a full review of the evidence of past temperature-the so-called 'hockey stick graph'. They found that for the Northern Hemisphere at least, the rapid warming of the past half century has resulted in a level of warmth not seen in at least 500 years, and likely for at least the past 1300 years.

This is rather odd, because the NAS panel concluded nothing of the sort. Slingo appears to have taken the IPCC's conclusions and ascribed them to the NAS.

One could again wonder about whether this represents a partial or impartial view of the science. Can one really brief policymakers on the paleoclimate reconstructions without mentioning the fact that the whole basis of these reconstructions is potentially undermined by the divergence problem?

 

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