A Tale of Two Reports - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars - page 111

Chapter 11
A Tale of Two Reports
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact
answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
—John Tukey (1962)
The appearance of two dueling reports within weeks of each other in early summer 2006 constituted
the next major development in the Hockey Stick battle. The first of the reports, Surface Temperature
Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years , commissioned by Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-
NY), was published on June 22 and carried the imprimatur of the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS). 1 The NAS committee was chaired by a leading expert in statistical climatology, Gerald North
of Texas A&M University, and consisted of a blue ribbon panel of a dozen experts with diverse
relevant expertise, including leading climate scientists, paleoclimatologists, and statisticians, and
several members of the National Academy itself. Among the panel members was John Christy, widely
regarded as a skeptic in the climate change debate. The panel in turn solicited input broadly from an
array of relevant experts, including me and the most prominent critics of our work. The report was
subjected to the Academy's extremely rigorous peer review process (there were thirteen peer
reviewers and two review editors).
The second of the two reports, the so-called Wegman Report commissioned by Congressman Joe
Barton (R-TX), was released on July 14. 2 It was written by statistician Edward Wegman of George
Mason University and two handpicked associates: David W. Scott, a statistician from Rice
University, and Yasmin H. Said, a Wegman graduate student. 3 Neither Wegman nor his two coauthors
possessed any training in physical science, let alone in climate science. The report had no backing
from any recognized scientific organization, there was no evidence of attempts to solicit input from
leading scientific experts, and only lip service was paid to the idea of formal peer review. 4
The Academy Speaks
The basic message of the NAS report was clear: Our original conclusions were broadly supported by
the evidence: “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) … that the late 20th century warmth
in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years … has
subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes the additional large-scale surface
temperature reconstructions and documentation of the spatial coherence of recent warming … and
also the pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators.” The report concluded that “based
on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence,
the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few