Questions Surrounding the 'hockey Stick' Temperature Studies

Members present: Representatives Walden, Bass, Stearns, Burgess, Blackburn, Barton (ex officio), Stupak, Schakowsky, Inslee, Baldwin, Waxman, and Whitfield.

Staff present: Mark Paoletta, Chief Counsel for Oversight and Investigations; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member; Tom Feddo, Counsel; Matt Johnson, Legislative Clerk; Mike Abraham, Legislative Clerk; Ryan Ambrose, Legislative Clerk; David Vogel, Minority Research Assistant; Chris Knauer, Minority Investigator; Lorie Schmidt, Minority Counsel; and Edith Holleman, Minority Counsel.

MR. WHITFIELD. I call this hearing to order this morning.

Albert Gore's first movie, or documentary, entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" is the most recent of many topics in years and years of focus on the subject of global warming, and 95 percent of the American people certainly are familiar with the term "global warming" and they know basically what it means, I would think. However, 95 percent of the American people and certainly 95 percent of the Members of the U.S. Congress have not had the time to examine the data used by scientists, paleoclimatologists, and statisticians nor do they have the inclination to do so, to look at that data that is used to predict the probability that the temperature of one century is warmer or cooler than that of another century.

Now, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the world body with most of the interest and does focus on this subject of global warming. And it is the body that most people look to on this subject. Now, for many years the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used a chart that clearly shows the temperature from

1000 A.D. to about 1450 A.D., that the temperatures during that period were significantly warmer than the latter part of the 20th Century, or the late 1990s. Now, in 1998 and 1999, a paleoclimatologist, Dr. Michael Mann, with Raymond Bradley and Dr. Malcolm Hughes, introduced a new technique to develop more quantitative estimates of the nature of climate change since 1000 A.D. and concluded that the late 20th Century was the warmest in 1,000 years, that the warming during the late 1990s was the warmest in over 1,000 years. Now, as a result of that report, the IPCC incorporated the study with other data which eliminated the warming period for 1000 A.D. to 1450 A.D. and incorporated a new graph referred to as the "hockey stick" graph, which shows remarkable warming in the late 1990s. Now, when Chairman Barton and I wrote a letter asking that the Mann report be reviewed by some statisticians, there was a hue and cry around the country among many people in the news media that we were being totally political, that all we were trying to do was gut this issue that global warming is occurring. But I think quite sincerely that we have a responsibility when public policy decisions being made on reports like the Mann report and others have such a broad impact on so much of our society and certainly the Kyoto arguments were primarily based on this new chart, that the U.S. should be part of Kyoto. That was an important part of that. And so what we did was, we asked that Dr. Wegman and a team that he had review these data. Now, when we did that, Sherry Boehlert, who is a good Republican friend of ours and is Chairman of the Science Committee, was quite upset about it and he said I think you all are being political also, and he asked that we ask Dr. North, who is going to be a witness, and would like for him to be involved in this data analysis, and he is going to be a witness today also. But the real purpose of this is that this issue is so important that I think it is imperative that we hear from all sides and try to get some real understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these reports.

Now, Dr. Wegman is going to testify today that the mathematics used by Mann is incorrect and wrong. Dr. North, I think on page five of his testimony, says that they have some concerns about it, the math. But the first witness today is going to be Dr. Edward Wegman, a statistician from George Mason University, and on his team was Dr. David Scott from Rice University and Dr. Yasmin Said from Johns Hopkins, and she is sitting behind him there. Dr. Wegman is Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and at the committee's request he assembled this ad hoc committee of statisticians to examine the hockey stick studies and related articles and his committee report prepared for Chairman Barton and me and the committee and publicly released this Friday provides important findings

openness of climate change research and assessment and I can tell you right now that his document has been peer reviewed also, and we will get into that later.

In addition to Dr. Wegman, we have Dr. Gerald North of Texas A&M University, who will testify on the first panel about the current state of historical temperature understanding. Dr. North chaired a recent National Research Council panel on historical temperature reconstructions and we look forward to hearing his perspective for improving climate change assessments. And to help us understand some particulars of the IPCC process, we will hear testimony on the second panel from Dr. Thomas Karl, who is a coordinating author of the chapter upon which Dr. Mann and his colleagues worked. Dr. Thomas Crowley of Duke University will be here and Dr. Hans von Storch, who traveled from Germany to be with us this morning. Both will provide their views concerning the questions about the hockey stick study as well as questions concerning data sharing, transparency and the IPCC process.

Finally, I would like to welcome Mr. Stephen McIntyre, who will testify about attempting to understanding just what was behind the hockey stick graphic promoted by the IPCC. His work is a testament to the value of open debate and scrutiny.

Now, I have talked about Dr. Mann and we invited Dr. Mann to be here today and he was unable to be here. We are extending another invitation for him to come and hope that maybe he will be here next week. Now, even though Dr. Mann could not come, he specifically asked us to request Dr. Crowley to testify on his behalf and Dr. Crowley is with us today from Duke University, and we look forward to his testimony. But as I said, the real purpose of this hearing is, let us just open the book. Let us look at everything. Let us look at the criticisms of all parties and see exactly where we are on this important issue of global climate change.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Ed Whitfield follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. ED WHITFIELD, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

Good morning and welcome. We convene this hearing today to consider questions that begin with and surround the reliability of two particular studies of historical temperatures that gained an extraordinary level of public prominence a few years ago, and recently featured in former Vice President Al Gore's motion picture, “An Inconvenient Truth."

In 2001, the results of these studies were used to promote the view that the very recent average temperatures of the northern hemisphere were likely the warmest in 1,000 years. The temperature history results were portrayed in what is widely known as the 'hockey stick' graph, for its resemblance to the shape of a hockey stick. As a result, these

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