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—ended up backfiring on our critics. John Christy's scientific claim to fame, as noted earlier, was a
satellite-based record of atmospheric temperature trends that appeared to contradict surface evidence
of warming. That Christy's record, which had been held up as a central pillar in the case for climate
change denial, had been shown to be an artifact of faulty computations
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generated curiously little
outrage on Joe Barton's part, however. In his testimony at the hearing, Christy lectured the audience
about scientific openness, presenting himself as a paragon of virtue when it came to sharing source
code: “When asked by others [scientists at Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in California], we
provided sections of our code and relevant data files. By sharing this information, we opened
ourselves up to exposure or a possible problem which we had somehow missed, and frankly this was
not personally easy. On the other hand, if there was a mistake we wanted it fixed.”
Figure 11.1: Barton's Congressional Hearing
My testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July 2005. Mostly obscured is John Christy. National Academy of
Sciences President Ralph Cicerone is seen looking on in the background.
Christy seemed to have no idea what he had just walked into: Henry Waxman (D-CA) apparently
had been waiting for precisely this moment:
