Tree Ring Circus

If anyone is embarrassed in Copenhagen, though, it should be global warming alarmists. The framework of their claims is cracking. As it turns out — and this should be no surprise — the data that have been used to create the global warming bogeyman are flawed. For example, historical temperature patterns extracted from tree rings in Siberia's Yamal Peninsula look increasingly dubious. They indicate warming, but were taken from a sample of only 12 trees. A larger sample (34 trees) in the same area shows no warming. The scientists who compiled the record using the smaller sample are rightfully being accused of cherry-picking their data. But at least they didn't lose their data, as another group of scientists apparently has done. Researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia, entrusted with constructing what's been called the world's first comprehensive history of surface temperature, built a record that showed the Earth is warming. Impossible as it may seem, a good chunk of the raw data that were used to create the "hockey stick" record indicating man is responsible for global warming is suddenly unavailable. It's either been lost or destroyed. This is significant. Scientists who want to use the data to either confirm or dispute the global warming findings can't get them. Then there's the latest news on Arctic ice, which is cited as proof of global warming when it melts and ignored when it grows. Seems that it expanded this summer after shrinking for the previous two...read more