That icon of climate alarmism, the “hockey stick,” which says that recent temperatures are higher than they have been for 1000 years, was recently broken down to an uncontroversial 400 years by a National Academies report. Concurrently, Rep. Barton commissioned a report for the House Resources Committee on the statistical methods used to produce the hockey stick. A very eminent statistician, Dr Edward Wegman, conducted the report pro bono with other learned colleagues. His report, issued today, is devastating for the hockey stick’s supporters:

It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. 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.

A summary of the report is available here.