The Hockey Stick Illusion
Encyclopedia
The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science is a book written by Andrew Montford
and published by Stacey International
in 2010. Montford, an accountant
and science publisher who publishes a climate sceptic blog
provides his analysis of the history of the "hockey stick graph
" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years and the controversy surrounding the research which produced the graph. The book describes the history of the graph from its inception to the beginning of the Climategate
controversy.
Since its release, the book has received a mixture of positive and negative reviews; The Guardian
referred to it as "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn", while The Spectator
described it as a "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing" and The Sunday Telegraph described it as "a remarkable scientific detective story".
The book was Amazon UK
's second bestselling environment book of 2010.
website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of Caspar Ammann's "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.
Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it Caspar and the Jesus paper. Montford states that word of his article caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his article as a source in Wikipedia. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his article into book form.
' "hockey stick graph" starting from when it first appeared in Nature
. The book describes how Steve McIntyre
first became interested in the graph and his subsequent struggle to replicate the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) and the refusal of Mann to release his source code and filtered dataset. It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Science and Edward Wegman
and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.
The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls "Climategate"
. Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in The Hockey Stick Illusion. Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the peer review
process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other paleoclimatologists' published works.
called The Hockey Stick Illusion "a well documented and well written book on the subject of the 'hockey [stick] wars.' It is required reading for anyone wanting to understand the blogosphere
climate skeptics and particularly the climate auditors," such as Steve McIntyre
and Ross McKitrick
. She wrote that the book "presents a well reasoned and well documented argument". Among those also praising the book was S. Fred Singer, who called it "probably the best book about the Hockey Stick." A number of other newspaper and magazine articles have praised the book, including reviews in Geoscientist
, Quadrant
, The Telegraph
, The Spectator
, Prospect
magazine , The Courier
, and the National Post
.
However, several reviewers criticized the book as providing cover for individuals opposing action on climate change. Alastair McIntosh
, writing in the Scottish Review of Books
, criticised the book as only being able to "cut the mustard with tabloid intellectuals but not with most scientists." Noting that Montford has not made any relevant scientific contributions, he commented that the book "might serve a psychological need in those who can't face their own complicity in climate change, but at the end of the day it's exactly what it says on the box: a write-up of somebody else's blog" and criticised the book as "at worst, ... a yapping terrier worrying the bull; it cripples action, potentially costing lives and livelihoods." Montford's book was also reviewed unfavorably for similar reasons by Bob Ward
in both The Guardian
and Geoscientist
, Chemistry World
and in a second Prospect
review.
Andrew Montford
Andrew William Montford is an English writer and editor who is the owner of the Bishop Hill blog for climate-change sceptics. He is the author of The Hockey Stick Illusion .-Early life:...
and published by Stacey International
Stacey International
Stacey International is an independent publisher based at 128 Church Street, Kensington in London. Founded in 1974 by Tom Stacey, the company aims to "maintain a resolute tradition of adaptive and imaginative publishing". Originally focusing on the Middle East and Islamic world, since 2005 have...
in 2010. Montford, an accountant
Accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...
and science publisher who publishes a climate sceptic blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
provides his analysis of the history of the "hockey stick graph
Hockey stick controversy
The hockey stick controversy refers to debates over the technical correctness and implications for global warming of graphs showing reconstructed estimates of the temperature record of the past 1000 years...
" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years and the controversy surrounding the research which produced the graph. The book describes the history of the graph from its inception to the beginning of the Climategate
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...
controversy.
Since its release, the book has received a mixture of positive and negative reviews; The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
referred to it as "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn", while The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
described it as a "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing" and The Sunday Telegraph described it as "a remarkable scientific detective story".
The book was Amazon UK
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's second bestselling environment book of 2010.
Background
According to Montford, in 2005 he followed a link from a British political blog to the Climate AuditClimate Audit
Climate Audit is a blog which was founded on 31 January 2005 by Steve Mcintyre.The New York Times has called it "a popular skeptics’ blog".The website has won the 2007 Best Science Blog award and was a runner up in the same category in 2008.-Founding:...
website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of Caspar Ammann's "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.
Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it Caspar and the Jesus paper. Montford states that word of his article caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his article as a source in Wikipedia. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his article into book form.
Synopsis
The Hockey Stick Illusion relates the story of Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. HughesMalcolm K. Hughes
Malcolm K. Hughes is a meso-climatologist and Regents' Professor of Dendrochronology in the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. He was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England, and earned a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Durham. Since 1998, he is a fellow of the...
' "hockey stick graph" starting from when it first appeared in Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
. The book describes how Steve McIntyre
Stephen McIntyre
Stephen McIntyre is a Canadian mathematician, former minerals prospector, and semi-retired mining consultant who is best known as the founder and editor of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data...
first became interested in the graph and his subsequent struggle to replicate the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) and the refusal of Mann to release his source code and filtered dataset. It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
Ross McKitrick
Ross McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is professor of economics at the University of Guelph; a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free-market public policy think tank; and a member of the academic advisory boards of the...
in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Science and Edward Wegman
Edward Wegman
Edward Wegman is a statistician, a statistics professor at George Mason University, and past chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics and is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a Senior...
and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
The U.S. House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is a subcommittee within the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.-Jurisdiction:...
. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.
The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls "Climategate"
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...
. Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in The Hockey Stick Illusion. Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other paleoclimatologists' published works.
Reception
Many reviews have praised the book for its content, writing style and accessibility. Climatologist Judith CurryJudith Curry
Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, and the use of unmanned aerial...
called The Hockey Stick Illusion "a well documented and well written book on the subject of the 'hockey [stick] wars.' It is required reading for anyone wanting to understand the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
climate skeptics and particularly the climate auditors," such as Steve McIntyre
Stephen McIntyre
Stephen McIntyre is a Canadian mathematician, former minerals prospector, and semi-retired mining consultant who is best known as the founder and editor of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data...
and Ross McKitrick
Ross McKitrick
Ross McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is professor of economics at the University of Guelph; a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free-market public policy think tank; and a member of the academic advisory boards of the...
. She wrote that the book "presents a well reasoned and well documented argument". Among those also praising the book was S. Fred Singer, who called it "probably the best book about the Hockey Stick." A number of other newspaper and magazine articles have praised the book, including reviews in Geoscientist
Geoscientist
*For the Geological Society Magazine see Geoscientist *For Geoscientist see Earth science...
, Quadrant
Quadrant (magazine)
Quadrant is an Australian literary and cultural journal. The magazine takes a conservative position on political and social issues, describing itself as sceptical of 'unthinking Leftism, or political correctness, and its "smelly little orthodoxies"'. Quadrant reviews literature, as well as...
, The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
, Prospect
Prospect (magazine)
Prospect is a monthly British general interest magazine, specialising in politics and current affairs. Frequent topics include British, European, and US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy, and psychology...
magazine , The Courier
The Courier
The Courier & Advertiser, more commonly known as simply The Courier, is a broadsheet newspaper published by DC Thomson in Dundee, Scotland...
, and the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
.
However, several reviewers criticized the book as providing cover for individuals opposing action on climate change. Alastair McIntosh
Alastair McIntosh
Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish writer, academic and activist.He was brought up in Leurbost on the Isle of Lewis and is married to Vérène Nicolas. He is involved with Scottish land reform especially on Eigg and campaigned successfully against the Harris superquarry in Lingerbay...
, writing in the Scottish Review of Books
Scottish Review of Books
The Scottish Review of Books is a quarterly literary magazine published in Scotland. . It was established in October 2004 with the support of the Scottish Arts Council. In 2009 it became a limited company with a board of directors, Scottish Review of Books Limited. It is now managed from the...
, criticised the book as only being able to "cut the mustard with tabloid intellectuals but not with most scientists." Noting that Montford has not made any relevant scientific contributions, he commented that the book "might serve a psychological need in those who can't face their own complicity in climate change, but at the end of the day it's exactly what it says on the box: a write-up of somebody else's blog" and criticised the book as "at worst, ... a yapping terrier worrying the bull; it cripples action, potentially costing lives and livelihoods." Montford's book was also reviewed unfavorably for similar reasons by Bob Ward
Bob Ward
Robert Ward is a Canadian author and travel writer with a special interest in pilgrimages. Though a self-professed atheist, he specialized in religious studies and English literature at the University of Toronto before doing an M.A...
in both The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and Geoscientist
Geoscientist
*For the Geological Society Magazine see Geoscientist *For Geoscientist see Earth science...
, Chemistry World
Chemistry World
Chemistry World is a monthly chemistry news magazine published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The magazine addresses current events in world of chemistry including research, international business news and government policy as it affects the chemical science community, plus the best product...
and in a second Prospect
Prospect (magazine)
Prospect is a monthly British general interest magazine, specialising in politics and current affairs. Frequent topics include British, European, and US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy, and psychology...
review.
See also
- Climatic Research Unit email controversyClimatic Research Unit email controversyThe Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...
- Historical climatologyHistorical climatologyHistorical climatology is the study of historical changes in climate and their effect on human history and development. This differs from paleoclimatology which encompasses climate change over the entire history of the earth. The study seeks to define periods in human history where temperature or...
- Hockey stick controversyHockey stick controversyThe hockey stick controversy refers to debates over the technical correctness and implications for global warming of graphs showing reconstructed estimates of the temperature record of the past 1000 years...
- Medieval warm periodMedieval Warm PeriodThe Medieval Warm Period , Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region, that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including in China, New Zealand, and other countries lasting from...
- Global warming controversyGlobal warming controversyGlobal warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
External links
- An interview with Andrew Montford at The RegisterThe RegisterThe Register is a British technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice, Mike Magee and Ross Alderson in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service...