by P. Gosselin, October 26, 2018 in NoTricksZone

A Piece Of Climate Science History: Hockey Stick Emails Soon To Be Published

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(Text translated by P Gosselin)

The hockey stick controversy over a temperature reconstruction of the past 2000 years represents an important stage in the climate debate. At around the turn of the millennium, the authors of the “hockey stick chart” suggested that the pre-industrial climate was monotonous and uneventful. The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age described in many parts of the world climatically must have been very similar. But that’s hard to understand if you look at the wide variety of case studies.

Cover-up absurdity, then forced to correct

Later, the authors improved and presented a corrected version, which again showed stronger climatic fluctuations. Quite a science story. You can read about it here.

In addition to this scientific rush job, the debate about the hockey stick also showed that climate data really must be made publicly available. This is all the more important if the science is used for far-reaching policies. Data and results obtained thereof must be verifiable. At the time no one wanted the data to be released. Today in retrospect that was quite an absurdity — similar to smoking in a large open office.

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