|
MBH98 STILL ON ENVIRONMENT CANADA WEB SITE |
From: Tom Harris [mailto:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
]
Sent: February 14, 2009 1:54 AM
To: '
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
'
The Honourable Jim Prentice
Minister of the Environment
Les Terrasses de la Chaudière
10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0H3
Dear Minister Prentice,
... content removed on another topic ...
A topic that has come up in class [Carleton University Earth Sciences 2402 - "Climate Change - a Geological Perspective"] a couple of times this semester (and in my presentation yesterday to high school science teachers at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Science PD Day) is why Environment Canada (EC) continue to highlight the Mann ‘hockey stick’ (MBH98) temperature reconstruction on the EC Web page http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/understanding/trends/index_e.html. As I explain in my letter to the editor of the Financial Post published on February 12, 2009, I am told that scientists inside EC understand that this temperature plot has been rejected as merely an artifact of poor data handling, biased data selection, obsolete data, and flawed computational methods (in that the computer program produces output data which, when plotted, reveals the ‘hockey stick’ shape, even if one inputs random data). I therefore ask, why is the MBH98 graph still on the EC site, or do you consider it to be correct?
Concerning the research used to produce this graph, the prestigious Wegman report (led by Professor Edward Wegman, chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics) concluded: "Overall, our committee believes that Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis."
Yet, Environment Canada say on the Web page about which I am complaining, “Similar to global trends, the 1990s have been the warmest decade and 1998 was the warmest year in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) recorded from the start of the millennium (Figure 1b).” Unless you believe this statement to be correct, I request that it be removed from the EC Web site, please. In addition, statements such as “The global average surface temperature has increased by 0.6 ± 0.2°C since the late 19th century (Figure 1a).” are almost a decade out of date (as is Figure 1a on http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/understanding/trends/images/fig1_e.html) and so should also either be removed or updated as soon as possible, since these Web pages are important sources of information for all Canadians, especially students.
Sincerely,
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
P.O. Box 23013
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 4E2
Canada
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
613-728-9200
|