I have previously blogged about the UK High Court finding 9 errors in Gore’s movie AIT, which resulted in the High Court ruling that: Schools Must Warn of AIT Film Bias.
Now we have an admission over at Climate Audit:
Sticking Thermometers In Places They Don’t Belong
In earlier posts, we observed that Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth claimed that “Dr Thompson’s thermometer” confirmed Michael Mann’s hockey stick, but, when analysed, what Gore described as “Dr Thompson’s thermometer” merely proved to be Michael Mann’s hockey stick mis-identified. No wonder it resembled Mann’s hockey stick – or, to use the phrase more common in climate science, no wonder there was a “remarkable” resemblance.
Hu McCulloch of Ohio State University now writes about a recent encounter with Lonnie Thompson, the serial ice core non-archiver and male nurse for the thermometer:
“On January 11, Lonnie Thompson gave a talk on Climate change at Ohio State. After his talk, I asked him if the graph identified by Al Gore as “Dr. Thompson’s Thermometer” in his book and film was really based on his ice core research.
Thompson admitted that an error had been made, and even had a slide ready that showed the data of the Mann Hockey Stick plus Jones instrumental data that Gore’s figure was based on, alongside an average of dO18 z-scores from 6 of his Andean and Himalayan ice cores, similar to the 7-series graph that appeared in his 2006 PNAS article. He stated that he recognized the error right away, and even sent Gore (and Mann, as I recall) an e-mail pointing out the mistake.
When I pressed him if it wouldn’t be appropriate to make a more public announcement, given the high-profile nature of the error, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, his wife and co-author, stood up and offered that it was Gore’s error, not theirs, so that they had no responsibility for it, and that in any event there was no forum in which to make a correction.
I suggested that since OSU’s Byrd Polar Research Center has a website with a News page, it would be trivial and virtually costless to post a press release clarifying the matter for the millions of readers and viewers of Gore’s book and film who are not on Thompson’s e-mail list. ”
“No forum”. “No responsibility.” No shame.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Along with the UK High Court ruling on nine errors in Gore’s AIT, and the Courts direction that schools showing the movie should warn of its bias; we now have a tenth error, vis the ‘thompson thermometer’ error.
Thompson would not publicly admit the error (although he did privatly). And of course Gore wouldn’t. Shame, and shame.
Here in Australia, Drs Barrie Pittock and Penny Whetton, (CSIRO) along with Dr. David Jones, BoM publicised their viewing of AIT, and publicly endorsed the movie, along with its ten errors, and countless other fibs and fables.
In view of the Judgement of the UK High Court, along with the Thompson error, would it be too much to expect these three high profile Public Servants to make a public statement refuting the errors and fibs and fables contained in Gore’s movie, and warning the public, and especially schools of its bias?
Yes, I guess it would be too much to expect of them!
Shame, shame and shame
There are many more than 9 or 10 ‘errors’ in the movie – I pointed out some of them:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002164.html
You would save yourself time by pointing out the stuff Al Gore got right in his movie.
The shortest blog piece ever! Still, my OLO piece was the 3rd most read.
“You would save yourself time by pointing out the stuff Al Gore got right in his movie.”
But then there would be nothing to discuss!