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Modi Government Opposes Religious Minority Status of Jamia Millia IslamiaThe BJP-led Central government's revised affidavit in Delhi high court relies on Supreme Court’s ruling in the Azeez Basha vs Union of India case.Jamia Milia Islamia. Credit: PTIAccording to an Indian Express report, the revised affidavit, filed on March 5, contests the order of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI), which recognises JMI as a religious minority institution.The Ministry of Human Resource Development in August 2011 submitted an affidavit in court certifying that then UPA-II government “respects the declaration made by NCMEI”. The ministry, at that time, was headed by Kapil Sibal.The BJP-led Central government’s revised affidavit relies on Supreme Court’s ruling in the Azeez Basha vs Union of India. According to Indian Express, the affidavit, justifying its opposition to JMI’s minority status observes that the first affidavit did not take into account the apex court’s judgment in the case stating that the university, instituted under an Act of parliament, was ineligible to claim minority status..As per the new affidavit – taken on record by the Delhi high court on March 13:“In any event, the Board of Jamia Millia Islamia is elected and need not necessarily consist of majority belonging to Muslim religion. The question of it being a minority institution therefore does not arise.”“Treating a central university as a minority education institution is repugnant to law besides undermining its status and is against the basic tenet of a central university… By no stretch of imagination, Article 30(1) could be read to mean that even if an educational institution has been established by a Central Act, still the minority has the right to administer it.”It was argued that since JMI set up “by an Act of Parliament,” is funded by the Central government, and was not “set up by a minority sect, the university does fall under the realm of being a “minority institution.”The government’s change in view on the institution, according to Indian Express, is in line with the stand of the NDA-II, which had rolled back its predecessor’s ruling on the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University in the Supreme Court in January 2016.In 2011, NCMEI stated: “Jamia was founded by the Muslims for the benefit of Muslims and it never lost its identity as a Muslim minority educational institution”, and was, therefore, “covered under Article 30(1), read with Section 2(g) of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act”.Based on this order, the university ended reservation for SC, ST and OBC students and reserved half of the seats in each course for Muslim candidates.By the wire

BECAUSE HIS DATA IS SHODDY AND WOULD EXPOSE HIS BIAS AND LACK OF ETHICS.Mann apparently relied on the tree rings of just one tree to change our climate history? [He won’t tell us.]Listen to what more than 100 of his colleagues (WORLD SCIENTISTS) think of Mann’s antics erasing canonical history of Medieval Warming period and the Little Ice age with secret data not yet disclosed today! They see him as the rogue political scientist that he is.Michael Mann did not have a case and failed to provide evidence to support his fraudulent erasure of the Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age climate history. The Supreme Court dismissed Mann’s claim solely because Mann failed to move forward with his trial and make a case. Mann misused the judicial system to harass his powerful critics like Dr. Ball. The court called him out an shut down his action. He has not launched an appeal which he would have no chance of winning.NO HOCKEY STICK WARMING SHOWN IN 333 TEMPERATURE RECORD FROM CHINA.THIS COLORED GRAPH IS TAKEN FROM THE IPCC REPORT OF 1990 AFTER MANN DID HIS ORWELLIAN REVISION TO “GET RID OF MEDIEVAL WARMING” AS IT DISPROVED HUMAN CAUSED CHANGE.Read the Supreme Court judgment yourself and you will see behavior unworthy of scientists by this man.SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 BY ANDREW LAWTON“Like the sword of Damocles”: Judge dismisses Michael Mann’s lawsuit against Tim Ball“A mere eight-and-a-half years after Penn State climatologist Michael Mann filed a lawsuit against Canadian professor Tim Ball, the case has been tossed out for its “inexcusable” delays.Justice Christopher Giaschi of the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued his decision in Vancouver on Aug. 22, in response to an application to dismiss by Ball.Based on his reasons, included in full below, the dismissal was ultimately justified by glacial pace at which the proceedings moved, and what the judge characterized as an absence of action by Mann’s team.The judge noted several periods of inaction between the commencement of the action in March, 2011 and the date of his decision.While Mann submitted four binders worth of documentation to combat the motion to dismiss, the judge found there was “no evidence from the plaintiff (Mann) explaining the delay.”Giaschi said the “inordinate delay” was not excusable, and that it prejudiced justice.An excerpt:The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant.The judge awarded Ball legal costs for the dismissal motion, and also the case itself.Mann v. Ball Page 4[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter.He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy onother matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me toHughes v. Simpson-Sears, [1988] 52D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice.”There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of http://them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), Is stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principleon which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the trial.”“IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIACitation: Mann v. Ball,2019 BCSC 1580Date: 20190822Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice GiaschiOral Reasons for JudgmentBall:M. ScherrD. Juteau Place and Date of Hearing: Vancouver, B.C.May 27 and August 22, 2019Place and Date of Judgment: Vancouver, B.C. August 22, 201[1] THE COURT: I will render my reasons on the application to dismiss. I reserve the right to amend these reasons for clarity and grammar, but the result will not change.[2] The defendant brings an application for an order dismissing the action for delay.[3] The plaintiff, Dr. Mann, and the defendant, Dr. Ball, have dramatically different opinions on climate change. I do not intend to address those differences. It is sufficient that one believes climate change is man-made and the other does not. As a result of the different opinions held, the two have been in near constant conflict for many years.[4] The underlying action concerns, first, a statement made by the defendant in an interview conducted on February 9, 2011. He said, “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.” This statement was published on a website and is alleged to be defamatory of the plaintiff. The notice of civil claim also alleges multiple other statements published by Mr. Ball are defamatory. It is not necessary that I address the many alleged defamatory statements.[5] 0690860 Manitoba Ltd. v. Country West Construction, 2009 BCCA 535, at paras. 27-28, sets out the four elements that need to be considered on a motion to dismiss. They are:a) Has there been inordinate delay in the prosecution of the matter?;b) If there has been inordinate delay, is it excusable in the circumstances?;c) Has the delay caused serious prejudice and, if so, does it create a substantial risk that a fair trial is not possible?; andd) Whether, on balance, justice requires that the action be dismissed.[6] I turn first to whether there has been inordinate delay. Some key dates in the litigation are:a) March 25, 2011, the action was commenced;b) July 7, 2011, the notice of civil claim was amended;c) June 5, 2012, the notice of civil claim was further amended;d) From approximately June of 2013 until November of 2014, there were no steps taken in the action;e) November 12, 2014, the plaintiff filed a notice of intention to proceed;f) February 20, 2017, the matter was initially supposed to go to trial, but that trial date was adjourned;g) July 20, 2017, the date of the last communication received from Mr. Mann or his counsel by the defendant. No steps were taken in the matter until March 21, 2019 when the application to dismiss was filed;h) April 10, 2019, a second notice of intention to proceed was filed; andi) August 9, 2019, after the first day of the hearing of this application, a new trial date was set for January 11, 2021.[7] There have been at least two extensive periods of delay. Commencing in approximately June 2013, there was a delay of approximately 15 months where nothing was done to move the matter ahead. There was a second extensive period of delay from July 20, 2017 until the filing of the application to dismiss on March 21, 2019, a delay of 20 months. Again, nothing was done during this period to move the matter ahead. The total time elapsed, from the filing of the notice of civil claim until the application to dismiss was filed, was eight years. It will be almost ten years by the time the matter goes to trial. There have been two periods, of approximately 35 months in total, where nothing was done. In my view, by any measure, this is an inordinate delay.[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter. He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy on other matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013 and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me to Hughes v. Simpson Sears, [1988] 52 D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice”. There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), I stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principle on which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the defendant's right not to be prejudiced by unreasonable delay that justice must be done.[Emphasis added][11] Additionally, based upon the evidence filed, the plaintiff and his counsel appear to have attended to other matters, both legal matters and professional matters in the case of the plaintiff, rather than give this matter any priority. The plaintiff appears to have been content to simply let this matter languish.[12] Accordingly, I find that the delay is inexcusable.[13] With respect to prejudice, such prejudice is presumed unless the prejudice is rebutted. Indeed, the presumption of prejudice is given even more weight in defamation cases: Samson v. Scaletta, 2016 BCSC 2598, at paras 40-43. The plaintiff has not filed any evidence rebutting the presumption of prejudice.[14] Moreover, the defendant has led actual evidence of actual prejudice. The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.[15] Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.[16] I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant. This is a relatively straightforward defamation action and should have been resolved long before now. That it has not been resolved is because the plaintiff has not given it the priority that he should have. In the circumstances, justice requires that the action be dismissed and, accordingly, I do hereby dismiss the action for delay.[17] Before concluding, I wish to note that the materials that have been filed on this application are grossly excessive in relation to the matters in issue. There are four large binders of materials filed by the plaintiff on the application to dismiss, plus one additional binder from the defendant. The binders contain multiple serial affidavits, many of which are replete with completely irrelevant evidence. In my view, this application could have been done and should have been done with one or two affidavits outlining the delay, the reasons for the delay, and the prejudice.[18] Those are my reasons, counsel. Costs?[19] MR. SCHERR: I would, of course, ask for costs for the defendant, given the dismissal of the action.[20] MR. MCCONCHIE: Costs follow the event. I have no quarrel with that.[21] THE COURT: All right. I agree. The costs will follow the event, so the defendant will have his costs of the application and also the costs of the action, since the action is dismissed.[22] The outstanding application, I gather there is no reason to proceed with it now.[23] MR. MCCONCHIE: It is academic, in light of –[24] THE COURT: It is academic.[25] MR. MCCONCHIE: – Your Lordship's ruling today.[26] THE COURT: Right. Thank you, gentlemen. Anything else?[27] MR. SCHERR: No, Your Honour.[28] THE COURT: All right.[29] MR. SCHERR: No, My Lord.[30] THE COURT: Then, we are concluded and you shall have your materials back, which are these binders. Thank you, gentlemen.“Giaschi J.”2019 BCSC 1580 Mann v. Ball}By erasing the warmer Medieval period and the colder Little Ice Mann made current warming appear unprecedented which it was not.He was called out by Dr. Tim Ball for fraud.Mann is a rogue scientist and his refusal to produce codes and data is unethical.THE AFFIDAVIT FILED BY DR. TIM BALL AS DEFENDANT IN THE LIBEL TRIAL IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BC.Ball exposes data fraud of Michael Mann in erasing climate history and refusing to produce “the codes, calculations and or data to allow proper verification of the results.”The Supreme Court of British Columbia has released the damning official final Judgment in the Mann-v-Ball ‘science trial of the century. SEE -Damning Ruling Posted in the Mann-v-Ball 'Trial of the Century' | PSI Intl“Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.”ALLEGED LIBEL OF DR. TIM BALL AFFIDAVIT FOLLOWSMANN lost the case by inaction that implied his libel case was a sham. This is the consent order agreed by both parties in 2017 where Mann agreed to deliver “any expert reports in response to the reports delivered by the defendants.” Mann failed to deliver anything.“ACTION NO. VLCS-S0111913VANCOUVER REGISTRY IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIABETWEENMICHAEL MANNPLAINTIFFANDTIMOTHY TIM") BALL, THE FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY INC., and JOHN DOEDEFENDANTS.CONSENT ORDERBEFORE{A MASTER OF THE COURTFebruary 10, 2017ON THE APPLICATION of the defendants, without a hearing and by consent;THIS COURT ORDERS that:The date for delivery of particulars by the defendant Timothy Ball, to the plaintiff of the directly relevant background context referred to on page 35, paragraph 2 of Schedule A to the Order of Master Scarth entered January 3, 2017 in this action be extended from January 13, 2017 to February 1, 2017.2. The plaintiff, Dr. Michael Mann, shall deliver any expert reports in response to the reports delivered by the defendants Timothy Ball and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy Inc. on or before February 20, 2017.3. The plaintiff, Dr. Michael Mann shall provide particulars of the issues upon which his listed witnesses will testify on or before February 7, 2017.THE FOLLOWING PARTIES APPROVE THE FORM OF THIS ORDER AND CONSENT TO EACH OF THE ORDERS NOTED ABOVEBy the CourtSignature of ROGER MCCONCHIE Lawyer for the plaintiffDigitally signed by Sienature of MICHAELR. SCHERRMann has not appealed the judgment against him and time to do so has past.‘“Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" Update: Now Definitively Established To Be FraudAugust 26, 2019/ Francis MentonThe Michael Mann “Hockey Stick” is suddenly back in the news. It’s been so long since we have heard from it, do you even remember what it is?The “Hockey Stick” is the graph that took the world of climate science by storm back in 1998. That’s when Mann and co-authors Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes published in Nature their seminal paper “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries.” A subsequent 1999 update by the same authors, also in Nature (“Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations”) extended their reconstructions of “temperature patterns and climate forcing” back another 400 years to about the year 1000. The authors claimed (in the first paragraph of the 1998 article) to “take a new statistical approach to reconstructing global patterns of annual temperature . . . , based on the calibration of multiproxy data networks by the dominant patterns of temperature variability in the instrumental record.” The claimed “new statistical approach,” when applied to a group of temperature “proxies” that included tree ring samples and lake bed sediments, yielded a graph — quickly labeled the “Hockey Stick” — that was the perfect icon to sell global warming fear to the public. The graph showed world temperatures essentially flat or slightly declining for 900+ years (the shaft of the hockey stick), and then shooting up dramatically during the 20th century era of human carbon dioxide emissions (the blade of the stick).In 2001 the UN’s IPCC came out with its Third Assessment Report on the state of the climate. The Hockey Stick graph dominated, appearing multiple times, including being the lead graph in the “Summary for Policy Makers” that is the only part of an IPCC report that anyone reads. Here is the version of the Hockey Stick graph that appeared the the SPM of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report:Now that is seriously scary! The Medieval Warm period — an era between the years of about 1000 and 1300 once generally accepted to have had temperatures warmer than the present — had disappeared. The clear implication was that the earth had had a benign and unchanging climate for about a thousand years, and now humans had entered the picture with their fossil fuels and were rapidly destabilizing the situation.I’m going to provide an overview of what has happened since, but first, here’s the latest. A prominent skeptical climate scientist in Canada named Tim Ball accused Mann of fraud in generating the Hockey Stick graph. The famous quote, from a February 2011 interview of Ball, was “Michael Mann should be in the State Pen, not Penn State.” In March 2011, Mann sued Ball for libel, focusing on that quote, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver. Here is a copy of the Complaint. (Note: In British Columbia, the Supreme Court is not the highest appellate court, but rather the trial-level court for larger cases.) The case then essentially disappeared into limbo for eight plus years. But on Friday, August 23, the British Columbia court dismissed Mann’s claim with prejudice, and also awarded court costs to Ball. As far as I can determine, this was an oral ruling, and no written judgment nor transcript of the ruling yet exists. I have asked Ball to send them along as soon as they exist.The story of Ball’s vindication, and of Mann’s shame, is a somewhat long one, and turns on Mann’s flat refusal to share publicly the data and methodology by which he constructed the Hockey Stick graph. In about 2003 a very talented Canadian mathematician named Steve McIntyre began an effort to replicate the Mann/Bradley/Hughes work. McIntyre started with a request to Mann to provide the underlying data and methodologies (computer programming) that generated the graph. To his surprise, McIntyre was met not with prompt compliance (which would be the sine qua non of actual science) but rather with hostility and evasion. McIntyre started a blog called Climate Audit and began writing lengthy posts about his extensive and unsuccessful efforts to reconstruct the Hockey Stick. Although McIntyre never completely succeeded in perfectly reconstructing the Hockey Stick, over time he gradually established that Mann et al. had adopted a complex methodology that selectively emphasized certain temperature proxies over others in order to reverse-engineer the "shaft" of the stick to get a pre-determined desired outcome.Then came the so-called ClimateGate disclosures in 2009. These were emails between and among many of the main promoters of the climate scare (dubbed by McIntyre the "Hockey Team"). Included in the Climategate releases were emails relating specifically to the methodology of how the graph was created. From the emails, skeptical researchers were then able to identify some of the precise data series that had been used by Mann et al. Astoundingly, they discovered that the graph's creators had truncated inconvenient data in order to get the desired depiction. A website called Just the Facts has a detailed recounting of how this was uncovered. As a key example, consider this graph:The bright pink plus the dotted line in between the two pink portions shows one of the data series used in the construction of the Hockey Stick graph; but the pink portions were deleted when the graph was presented. Obviously, inclusion of these pink portions would have thrown off the nice, flat "shaft" of the stick, while also revealing that this particular group of "proxies" had totally failed at matching the twentieth century rise in temperatures derived from the thermometer record, thus undermining the whole idea that these were valid proxies at all. In other words, Mann et al. had truncated inconvenient data that failed to match the narrative they wanted to present. Most would call this kind of data truncation a clearcut instance of "scientific fraud."This was the state of play in early 2011 when Ball uttered his famous line, “Michael Mann belongs in the State Pen, not Penn State.” Mann then immediately sued Ball for libel.Now, as readers here know, I spent my life in the litigation business. My practice was in the U.S. rather than Canada, but I have good reason to think that many of the basic ground rules would be the same. And one of the basic ground rules is that a plaintiff in civil litigation needs to provide “discovery” to the defendant of whatever factual information is in his possession that would either support or undermine his claims. When Mann brought his case, I was frankly amazed, because it was obvious to me that Ball would request as “discovery” the very data and methods that Mann had been aggressively resisting giving to anyone to check his work. How could Mann’s case survive if he refused to provide this information?Sure enough Mann absolutely refused to provide the underlying information in the Ball litigation. For better or worse, when a litigant does that, a court will try every possible avenue to try to get the parties to resolve the matter, before it will take the ultimate step of resolving the case against the non-compliant litigant. And that is in fact what happened in the Mann/Ball case. The court repeatedly tried to get an agreement that something would be produced that would satisfy Ball, and repeatedly gave Mann more time to comply. Could this really go on for eight years? In the U.S., that would be extraordinary, but not impossible. Maybe in Canada it is less extraordinary. It appears that in 2017 Mann actually agreed (under court pressure) to produce to Ball within 21 days the key technical information about construction of the Hockey Stick graph that Ball was requesting. But the information was not produced. Undoubtedly there have been multiple returns by Ball to the court since then to enforce compliance, finally seeking the dismissal of Mann’s claims as the ultimate sanction. On Friday, the court granted that relief.Here’s a twist that is simply beyond belief. On February 17, 2018, the American Association for the Advancement of Science — the largest professional association of scientists in the world, claiming to have more than 120,000 members — gave its supposedly prestigious “Public Engagement with Science” award to none other than Michael Mann. Here is its announcement of the award. Some choice excerpts:The honor recognizes Mann’s “tireless efforts to communicate the science of climate change to the media, public and policymakers.” In the past year, Mann has had 500 media interviews and appearances and directly reached public audiences via social media. . . . He has also advised actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who spoke about climate change during a 2014 speech delivered to the United Nations.The AAAS did this in the face of the clear demonstration of Mann’s misconduct from the ClimateGate revelations, and in the face of Mann’s ongoing obstruction of proper discovery in the Ball litigation. This whole “climate” thing is truly unbelievable in how it warps the minds of seemingly sane people.Anyway, the bottom line is that, after eight long years, Mann’s lawsuit against Ball has been dismissed “with prejudice” — meaning that he has no right to reinstitute the case. Also, the court has said that it will award at least some “costs” to Ball, although the amount has not yet been determined. Presumably, written opinions and a final judgment will follow, and I will update this post with links to those if and when I receive them. I would expect some triumphant claims of vindication from Ball and his supporters. In light of the court’s decision, Mann will be severely constrained in what he can do in response. Hey — why not produce your data and methods?Will any of this embarrass or rein in the likes of the IPCC, the AAAS, or any of the many mainstream climate-hoax-promoting outlets that continue to publish Mann’s screeds? (Examples: New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post). Don't bet on it. As of today, I can’t even find any coverage of the court result in any “mainstream” outlet.Meanwhile, note that this is only a trial court decision. Theoretically, Mann can appeal, and an appeals court might send this back. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine that, even if an appeals court reverses and sends the case back, that it won’t condition further proceedings on Mann producing his data and methods. I can’t believe that he will ever do that. The only fair inference at this point is that the Hockey Stick is and always was a scientific fraud.Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" Update: Now Definitively Established To Be Fraud — Manhattan Contrarian”CLIMATE}CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX COLLAPSES AS MICHAEL MANN’S BOGUS “HOCKEY STICK” GRAPH DEFAMATION LAWSUIT DISMISSED BY THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIAAUGUST 27, 2019 KEN BILLINGSFacebookTwitterEmailShareNatural News – August 26, 2019 by: Mike AdamsFor the past two decades, much of the hysteria about global warming — later re-labeled “climate change” — has been based on the so-called “hockey stick” graph produced by Michael Mann. The graph, shown below, has been used by the IPCC, the media and governments to push global warming hysteria to the point of mass mental illness, where Democrat presidential candidates claim humanity only has 12 years remaining before a climate apocalypse will somehow destroy the planet.But the hockey stick graph is a fraud. A man-made computer software algorithm generated it, and the algorithm is rigged to produce a hockey stick shape no matter what data were entered. Like everything else found in the rigged world of “climate science,” the hockey stick graph was a fraud the day it was generated.Michael Mann didn’t like being called a fraud by his critics, so he sued them for defamation. And late last week, one of those lawsuits was concluded by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, which threw out Mann’s lawsuit against Dr. Tim Ball. But there’s more. According to Principia-Scientific:Not only did the court grant Ball’s application for dismissal of the nine-year, multi-million dollar lawsuit, it also took the additional step of awarding full legal costs to Ball. A detailed public statement from the world-renowned skeptical climatologist is expected in due course.This extraordinary outcome is expected to trigger severe legal repercussions for Dr Mann in the U.S. and may prove fatal to climate science claims that modern temperatures are “unprecedented.”Support our mission and enhance your own self-reliance: The laboratory-verified Organic Emergency Survival Bucket provides certified organic, high-nutrition storable food for emergency preparedness. Completely free of corn syrup, MSG, GMOs and other food toxins. Ultra-clean solution for years of food security. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store.Michael Mann refuses to turn over the data behind the graph, insisting on secrecy instead of transparencyThis court decision reportedly stemmed from the fact that Michael Mann refused to turn over “R2 regression numbers” to the court, which would have revealed the data manipulations that led to the rigging of the hockey stick graph. This unwillingness to disclose the graph algorithm and data points reveals the total lack of transparency and scientific integrity that has plagued Mann’s supposed “science” work for decades. As American Thinker explains:Real science, not the phony “consensus” version, requires open access to data, so that skeptics (who play a key role in science) can see if results are reproducible.More from Technocracy.news:Mann’s now proven contempt of court means Ball is entitled to have the court serve upon Mann the fullest punishment. Contempt sanctions could reasonably include the judge ruling that Dr. Ball’s statement that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State’ is a precise and true statement of fact. This is because under Canada’s unique ‘Truth Defense’, Mann is now proven to have wilfully hidden his data, so the court may rule he hid it because it is fake. As such, the court must then dismiss Mann’s entire libel suit with costs awarded to Ball and his team.The spectacular rise and fall of climate alarmism’s former golden boy is a courtroom battle with even more ramifications than the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. To much fanfare at the time, Mann had sued Ball for daring to publish the damning comment that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State.” Dr Ball brilliantly backed up his exposure of the elaborate international money-making global warming scam in his astonishing book, ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science‘.In his books, articles, radio and television appearances, Dr. Ball has been resolute in his generation-long war against those who corrupted the field of science to which he had selflessly dedicated his life. Now aged 79, Ball is on the cusp of utter vindication. Despite the stresses and strains on himself and his family, Tim has stood at the forefront of those scientists demanding more openness and transparency from government-funded researchers.“Climate science community in crisis”Technocracy.news goes on to explain the ultimate ramifications of this court decision:A bitter and embarrassing defeat for the self-styled ‘Nobel Prize winner’ who acted as if he was the epitome of virtue, this outcome shames not only Michael Mann, but puts the climate science community in crisis. Many hundreds of peer-reviewed papers cite Mann’s work, which is now effectively junked. Despite having deep-pocketed backers willing and able to feed his ego as a publicity-seeking mouthpiece against skeptics, Mann’s credibility as a champion of environmentalism is in tatters. But it gets worse for the litigious Penn State professor. Close behind Dr Ball is celebrated writer Mark Steyn. Steyn also defends himself against another one of Mann’s SLAPP suits – this time in Washington DC. Steyn boldly claims Mann “has perverted the norms of science on an industrial scale.” Esteemed American climate scientist, Dr Judith Curry, has submitted to the court an Amicus Curiae legal brief exposing Mann. The world can now see that his six-year legal gambit to silence his most effective critics and chill scientific debate has spectacularly backfired.Principia-Scientific International also says a “criminal investigation” of Mann is now likely in the United States over allegations that Mann committed scientific fraud in faking his hockey stick chart:Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S.The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball (above, right) is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set to send shock waves worldwide within the climate science community as the outcome will be both a legal and scientific vindication of U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that climate scare stories are a “hoax.”As can be seen from the graphs below; Mann’s cherry-picked version of science makes the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) disappear and shows a pronounced upward ‘tick’ in the late 20th century (the blade of his ‘hockey stick’). But below that, Ball’s graph, using more reliable and widely available public data, shows a much warmer MWP, with temperatures hotter than today, and showing current temperatures well within natural variation.The perpetrator of the biggest criminal “assault on science” has now become clear: Dr Mann, utterly damned by his contempt of the court order to show his dodgy data.There can be little doubt that upon the BC Supreme Court ruling that Mann did commit data fraud, over in Washington DC, the EPA’s Scott Pruitt will feel intense pressure from skeptics to initiate a full investigation into Mann, his university and all those conspiring to perpetuate a trillion-dollar carbon tax-raising sting on taxpayers.}Climate change hoax collapses as Michael Mann’s bogus “hockey stick” graph defamation lawsuit dismissed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia - "We shall succeed" - Shiv Chopra‘THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD : GLOBAL and PEER REVIEWEDACCORDING to multiple lines of “peer-reviewed science”, the Medieval Warm Period was indeed ‘global’ and was as warm, if not warmer than today.CLICK here for excellent interactive map of clickable peer-reviewed MWP studies in both North and Southern Hemispheres :THE Medieval Warm Period – A Global Phenomenon*THE ‘INCONVENIENT’ PASTTHERE is absolutely nothing unusual about today’s so-called aka Climate Change.LOOK at how many periods of warmth our planet has enjoyed during the past 10,000 years alone.CIVILISATIONS flourished during those warm periods (“climate optimums”), and collapsed when they ended.DID humans cause the Minoan warm period of about 3,300 years ago?DID humans cause the Roman warm period of about 2,100 years ago?DID humans cause the Medieval warm period of about 1,000 years ago?WHAT about all of those other warm periods? Should we blame Fred Flintstone, perhaps?via @BigJoeBastardi | TwitterIF the downward trend in temperature of the past 3,300 years continues, we could be in a heap of trouble. While our leaders keep on wringing their collective hands over global warming, we could be blindsided by an ice age.ALL this talk about human-caused global warming is sheer nonsense, if not downright fraud. The record shows that both periods of warmth – and periods of cold – hit our planet with almost consistent regularity.Peer Review studies that show the Medieval Warm Period was global and warmer than present :o Study: Earth was warmer in Roman, Medieval Times | The Daily Callero New paper finds more evidence the Medieval Warming Period was global — Published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecologyo Latest Research: EU & Russian Scientists Confirm Medieval Period Warmer Than Modern Global Warmingo Antarctic warmer than today – An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsulao THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: New paper finds Medieval Warming Period was ~1°C warmer than current temperatureso New Paper Finds Ocean Temps Were Warmer During Multiple Periods Over Last 2700 Years Than Today | GWPFo Medieval Temps warmer than today : Jenny Lake, Southwest Yukon Territory, Canada – CO² Scienceo Medieval Warm Period was real, global, & warmer than the present’ – China & World – Chinadaily Forumo Evidence for a Global Medieval Warm Period | Watts Up With That?hockey stick graph | Search Results | ClimatismThe Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXFebruary 19, 2019/ Francis MentonSince last October, this series has been sitting at the rather awkward number of 19 (or “XIX”) posts. Time to round it off at an even XX.For those new to this topic, the Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the systematic downward adjustment of early-year temperatures in order to create a fake enhanced warming trend, the better to bamboozle voters and politicians to go along with extreme measures to try to avert the impending “climate crisis.” Prior posts in this series have documented large and unexplained downward adjustments at hundreds of stations around the world that are used by official government organizations (in the US, primarily NOAA and NASA) to wipe out early-year high temperatures and thereby proclaim that the latest month or year is “the hottest ever!” To read all prior posts in this series, go to this link.You might ask, with the extensive exposure of these unsupportable downward adjustments of early-year temperatures by official government organizations — accompanied by highly credible accusations of scientific fraud — haven’t the adjusters been cowed by now into a smidgeon of honesty? It sure doesn’t look that way.The latest news comes out of Australia, via the website of Joanne Nova. Nova’s February 17 post is titled “History keeps getting colder — ACORN2 raises Australia’s warming rate by over 20%.” “ACORN2” is a newly revised and updated temperature series for Australia, with temperatures going back to 1910 based on records from 112 weather stations on the continent, some 57 of which have records that go back all the way to the 1910 start date. “ACORN” stands for Australian Climate Observations Reference Network. The ACORN2 data compilation is so called to distinguish it from ACORN1, which was only released some 7 years ago in 2012. The people who put out these things are the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.According to Nova, the latest temperature adjustments were released “oh-so-quietly.” I guess that the plan is just to start using the new figures as the historical comparisons and bet that journalists will be too stupid or ignorant to figure out that the earlier temperatures have been altered. That’s actually a pretty good bet. However, down in Australia they do have a hard-working group of independent researchers who are on top of this issue. One of them is Nova, and another is Chris Gillham. Gillham has done his own very detailed analysis of the adjustments in the ACORN2 report, and has also put up a post on same at Watts Up With That. So there is plenty of information out there for intelligent people to make an independent judgment.A few excerpts from Nova:Once again we find that the oldest thermometers were apparently reading artificially high, even though many were newish in 1910 and placed in approved Stevenson screens. This is also despite the additional urban warming effect of a population that grew 400% since then. What are the odds?! Fortunately . . ., sorry scientists have uncovered the true readings from the old biased thermometers which they explain carefully in a 67 page impenetrable document. . . . The new ACORN version has nearly doubled the rate of warming in the minima of the longest running stations.Nova has put together several charts to show the magnitude of the adjustments, not only from ACORN1 to ACORN2, but also from the prior AWAP compilation to ACORN1. To no one’s surprise, each round of adjustments makes the earlier years cooler, and thus enhances the apparent warming trend. Here is Nova’s chart showing the amount of warming from the beginning to the end of the series, for each of AWAP, ACORN1 and ACORN2, and for minimum, mean and maximum temperatures:For example, the average minimum temperature had increased over the century covered by 0.84 deg C in the AWAP series. That increased to 1.02 deg C in the ACORN1 series, and to 1.22 deg C in the ACORN2 series.You need to go over to Gillham’s work to see how these changes derive mostly from decreases in early-year temperatures. Here is a chart from Gillham on the changes to minimum temperatures at the 57 stations that go back all the way to the 1910 start:As you can see, the “raw” and “v1” temperatures tend to be close — sometimes one higher, sometimes the other. But v2 is significantly lower across the board in the earlier years. Then, suddenly, in the recent years, it tracks the “raw” almost perfectly.Do they offer a justification for these downward adjustments? Yes, but nothing remotely satisfactory. The one-word explanation is “homogenization.” OK, we understand what that is. For example, sometimes a station moves, and that causes a discontinuity, where, say, the new location is systematically 0.1 deg C lower than the old. An adjustment needs to be made. But these sorts of adjustments should cancel out. How is it possible that every time some official meteorological organization anywhere in the world makes some of these “homogenization” adjustments, the result is that earlier years get colder and the supposed “global warming” trend gets enhanced — always to support a narrative of “climate crisis.”Well, fortunately, this time the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has put out a very long 57-page document explaining what they have done. Here it is. Is it any help?As far as I am concerned, this is the definitive proof of the fraud. If this were even an attempt at real, credible science, the proponents would put out a document complete with the details of the adjustments — and all of their computer code — so that an independent researcher could replicate the work. Nothing like that is here. This is pure bafflegab. Nova calls it “impenetrable,” which is way too nice a word as far as I’m concerned. Let me give you a small taste:3. HOMOGENISATION METHODS3.1 Detection of inhomogeneities - use of multiple detection methods in parallelIn version 1 of ACORN-SAT, a single statistical method for detection of inhomogeneities was used (Trewin, 2012). This method was based closely on the Pairwise Homogenisation Algorithm (PHA) developed by Menne and Williams (2009), and involves pairwise comparison of data between the candidate station and all sufficiently well-correlated stations in the region, with the Standard Normal Homogeneity Test (SNHT) (Alexandersson, 1986) used to identify significant breakpoints in the difference series. The test was carried out separately on monthly mean anomalies (as a single time series with 12 data points per year), and seasonal mean anomalies, with a breakpoint flagged for further assessment if it was identified in either the monthly series, or (within a window of ± 1 year) in at least two of the four seasons. Further details of the implementation of the PHA in the ACORN-SAT dataset are available in Trewin (2012).A range of other detection methods have been developed in recent years, many of which were the subject of the COST-HOME intercomparison project (Venema et al., 2012). Three of these methods were selected for use in ACORN-SAT version 2, the selection primarily based on ease of implementation. These methods were:• • HOMER version 2.6, joint detection (Mestre et al., 2013)• • MASH version 3.03 (Szentimrey, 2008).• • RHTests version 4 (Wang et al., 2010).All of these methods, which use different statistical approaches, have been successfully used across a range of networks since their development. Further details on their implementation are given in Appendix C.My favorite part is that reference at the end to “Appendix C.” This document has no Appendix C. There are three appendices, numbered Appendix 1, Appendix 2 and Appendix 3. That’s about the intellectual level we are dealing with.Anyway, try going to this document and see if you can figure out what they are doing. Believe me, you can’t.And finally: over the years as I have accumulated posts on this topic, several commenters have suggested that I must be alleging some kind of conspiracy among government climate scientists in making these adjustments. I mean, without that, how does it come about that the Australians just happen to be making the exact same kinds of adjustments as NASA, NOAA, and for that matter, as the Brits at the Hadley Center in the UK?If your brain is wondering how that could be, I would suggest that we have the same kind of phenomenon going on here as the hate crime hoax phenomenon. How does Jussie Smollett just happen to fake a hate crime playing right into the progressive narrative of the moment — just as did the Duke lacrosse team hoaxer, and the Virginia fraternity hoaxer, and the Harvard Law School black tape hoaxers, and many dozens of others? (Here is a compilation of some 15 recent hate crime hoaxes.) Did they all coordinate in one grand conspiracy? Or did they all just realize what was needed from them to support their “team” and its narrative?The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XX — Manhattan Contrarian”EVIDENCE MOUNTS SHOWIING MEDIEVAL WARMING REAL AND GLOBAL.Medieval warm periodYou are browsing the search results for "Medieval warm period"New Study: East Antarctica Was Up To 6°C Warmer Than Today During The Medieval Warm PeriodBy Kenneth Richard on15. October 2020As recently as 2000 to 1000 years ago, spanning the Roman to Medieval Warm Periods, East Antarctica was 5-6°C warmer than it is today. The consequent ice melt resulted in >60 meters higher water levels in East Antarctica’s lakes. East Antarctica has been rapidly cooling in recent decades, with magnitudes reaching -0.7°C to -2.0°C per […]Posted in Antarctic, Medieval Warm Period, Paleo-climatology | 4 ResponsesNew Study: Medieval Warm Period Not Limited To North Atlantic, But Occurred In South America As WellBy P Gosselin on3. November 2018Global warming alarmist scientists like claiming that the well documented Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was merely a regional phenomenon, and not global. However a new publication by Lüning et al adds yet another study that shows the warm period from 1000 years ago was indeed global. ================================ Image source: here. Preindustrial climate change in South […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 6 ResponsesNew Paleoclimate Findings Show Medieval Warm Period Across Africa And Arabia…Natural Climate DriversBy P Gosselin on10. February 2018Paleoclimate data still spotty and incomplete, leaving climate models vague, uncalibrated and filled with uncertainty Paleo-climatological data, used for the reconstruction of past climate from proxy records such as ice cores, tree rings, sediment cores etc., have not had adequate geographical coverage. Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, where a sediment core was extracted. Credit: Andreas31, CC BY-SA 3.0. For […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 13 ResponsesNew Study Confirms Medieval Warm Period Was Indeed Global, And As Warm As TodayBy P Gosselin on29. August 2017Here’s another blow to the global warming alarmist scientists, who have been claiming that the Medieval Warm Period was a local, North Atlantic phenomenon, and did not really exist globally. What follows is a report on yet another paper contradicting this now worn out claim. =================================== China: Warm phase of the 20th century was not […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 26 ResponsesBody Of Proof: Large Number Of Studies Show Medieval Warm Period “Prominent In Southern Hemisphere”By P Gosselin on31. May 2016Remember how in the late 1990s/early 2000s the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was made to disappear, and it was claimed that it was mainly a local, North Atlantic phenomenon. Unfortunately for those trumpeting this claim, a comprehensive worldwide survey of scientific literature is now showing that the MWP was in fact a global phenomenon, suggesting large-scale natural […]Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Paleo-climatology | 2 ResponsesNew Comprehensive Map By Scientists Confirms Medieval Warm Period Was Real And Global, Climate Models FaultyBy P Gosselin on23. December 2015One of the biggest obstacles global warming alarmists have had to deal with is the inconvenient existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), as there are reams of literature showing that this period was as warm or even warmer than today. Photo right: Fritz Vahrenholt (Die kalte Sonne) Yet, a number of global warming activists and alarmist […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 41 ResponsesAgain! 2nd Baltic Sea Report, Hans Von Storch, Show Medieval Warm Period 0.5°C Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on10. June 2015How many times must a hockey stick be broken, before alarmists stop wetting their beds? … The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. ====================================== Second climate status report on the Baltic Sea Region: Medieval Warm Period was Half A Degree Warmer Than Today By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt [Translated, edited by […]Posted in CO2 and GHG, Cooling/Temperature, Paleo-climatology | 31 ResponsesMore Glacier Studies Confirm Roman And Medieval Warm Periods Were Just As Warm As TodayBy P Gosselin on30. October 2014New studies confirm: Glaciers in the Alps already had “fevers” during the Roman and Medieval warm periods By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt (Translated, edited, condensed by P Gosselin) Everywhere activists and climate alarmists are claiming climate change is happening faster than ever and that the earth is dangerously approaching a tipping point. For example […]Posted in Glaciers | 11 ResponsesGerman Public Television Stuns Its Readers, Concedes Medieval Warm Period May Have Been 0.5°C Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on28. December 2013In Germany climate science used to be considered completely settled. Global temperatures had been pretty much steady for a thousand years before skyrocketing upwards as soon as man really started industrializing about 150 years ago, Germans were told again and again. But today Germany’s major media are beginning to realize that this view is perhaps quite naïve […]Posted in Media / Bias, Paleo-climatology, Scepticism, Solar Sciences, Tectonics/Volcanoes | 18 ResponsesTibetan Temperature Reconstruction Shows Medieval Warm Period Was Warmer Than Today!By P Gosselin on13. April 2013A team of scientists led by HE YuXin of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong examined two lake cores extracted from the Tibetan Plateau in order to reconstruct the past temperature development. Source: East_Asia_topographic_map.png: Ksiom, the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 The two cores coming from two different lakes […]Posted in Paleo-climatology, Solar Sciences | 2 ResponsesMedieval Warm Period Was Not “Just A Local Phenomenon” – Study Also Finds It In South AmericaBy P Gosselin on13. October 2012Dr. Sebastian Lüning’s and Prof Fritz Vahrenholt’s website has an article today. Photo source Marturius / License:Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported ============================ No North Atlantic Phenomenon: Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age Found in the Andes (Translated from the German by P Gosselin) The Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period […]Posted in Paleo-climatology | 2 ResponsesMedieval Warm Period And Little Ice Age Show Up In South America Too – Far Far Away From North AtlanticBy P Gosselin on6. June 2012Based on data from a few carefully selected tree rings, dogmatic warmist scientists like to insist that the Medieval Warm Period really did not exist globally and was only a local North Atlantic phenomenon. The climate, they tell us, was pretty much steady over the last couple thousand years – until man began to prosper […]Posted in Drought and Deserts, Paleo-climatology, Solar Sciences | 3 Responses

Yes.The official publication of “the hockey stick” temperature graph, shown below, convinced the world that there had to be a real Global Warming problem that should be addressed. And that could be achieved by reducing the use of fossil fuels by Western nations.This infamous fudged graph came from revising history by Michael Mann to HIDE THE DECLINE IN TEMPERATURE by removing the reality of the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age. It had an enormous effect on public fears of global warming.It certainly convinced me initially.So I graphed the original IPCC published data from 1990 against the “Hockey Stick”. The comparison shown above was stark. The intentional deception eliminated the previously well understood Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, . Added to the Mann graphic was “Mike’s Nature Trick to hide the decline”the original data showed a “decline” and that had to be “hidden”.The process involved was well explained by Prof Richard Muller in the is short extract from a presentation in October 2010 before his institution of the BEST temperature study.edmhdotmeMany scientists oppose the action of Michael Mann erasing climate history to create a new theory. Dr. Tim Ball is one of the most vigorous. For his efforts Mann started a SLAP libel suit to shut down the criticism. Mann recently lost the suit in the Supreme Court of BC for inordinate delay. He also refused to abide by a consent order to divulge his original data.Read the Supreme Court judgment finding against Michael Mann yourself here and you will see behavior unworthy of upright scientists by this man.SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 BY ANDREW LAWTON“Like the sword of Damocles”: Judge dismisses Michael Mann’s lawsuit against Tim Ball“A mere eight-and-a-half years after Penn State climatologist Michael Mann filed a lawsuit against Canadian professor Tim Ball, the case has been tossed out for its “inexcusable” delays.Justice Christopher Giaschi of the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued his decision in Vancouver on Aug. 22, in response to an application to dismiss by Ball.Based on his reasons, included in full below, the dismissal was ultimately justified by glacial pace at which the proceedings moved, and what the judge characterized as an absence of action by Mann’s team.The judge noted several periods of inaction between the commencement of the action in March, 2011 and the date of his decision.While Mann submitted four binders worth of documentation to combat the motion to dismiss, the judge found there was “no evidence from the plaintiff (Mann) explaining the delay.”Giaschi said the “inordinate delay” was not excusable, and that it prejudiced justice.An excerpt:The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant.The judge awarded Ball legal costs for the dismissal motion, and also the case itself.Mann v. Ball Page 4[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter.He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy onother matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me toHughes v. Simpson-Sears, [1988] 52D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice.”There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of http://them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), Is stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principleon which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the trial.”“IN THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIACitation: Mann v. Ball,2019 BCSC 1580Date: 20190822Before: The Honourable Mr. Justice GiaschiOral Reasons for JudgmentBall:M. ScherrD. Juteau Place and Date of Hearing: Vancouver, B.C.May 27 and August 22, 2019Place and Date of Judgment: Vancouver, B.C. August 22, 201[1] THE COURT: I will render my reasons on the application to dismiss. I reserve the right to amend these reasons for clarity and grammar, but the result will not change.[2] The defendant brings an application for an order dismissing the action for delay.[3] The plaintiff, Dr. Mann, and the defendant, Dr. Ball, have dramatically different opinions on climate change. I do not intend to address those differences. It is sufficient that one believes climate change is man-made and the other does not. As a result of the different opinions held, the two have been in near constant conflict for many years.[4] The underlying action concerns, first, a statement made by the defendant in an interview conducted on February 9, 2011. He said, “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the state pen, not Penn State.” This statement was published on a website and is alleged to be defamatory of the plaintiff. The notice of civil claim also alleges multiple other statements published by Mr. Ball are defamatory. It is not necessary that I address the many alleged defamatory statements.[5] 0690860 Manitoba Ltd. v. Country West Construction, 2009 BCCA 535, at paras. 27-28, sets out the four elements that need to be considered on a motion to dismiss. They are:a) Has there been inordinate delay in the prosecution of the matter?;b) If there has been inordinate delay, is it excusable in the circumstances?;c) Has the delay caused serious prejudice and, if so, does it create a substantial risk that a fair trial is not possible?; andd) Whether, on balance, justice requires that the action be dismissed.[6] I turn first to whether there has been inordinate delay. Some key dates in the litigation are:a) March 25, 2011, the action was commenced;b) July 7, 2011, the notice of civil claim was amended;c) June 5, 2012, the notice of civil claim was further amended;d) From approximately June of 2013 until November of 2014, there were no steps taken in the action;e) November 12, 2014, the plaintiff filed a notice of intention to proceed;f) February 20, 2017, the matter was initially supposed to go to trial, but that trial date was adjourned;g) July 20, 2017, the date of the last communication received from Mr. Mann or his counsel by the defendant. No steps were taken in the matter until March 21, 2019 when the application to dismiss was filed;h) April 10, 2019, a second notice of intention to proceed was filed; andi) August 9, 2019, after the first day of the hearing of this application, a new trial date was set for January 11, 2021.[7] There have been at least two extensive periods of delay. Commencing in approximately June 2013, there was a delay of approximately 15 months where nothing was done to move the matter ahead. There was a second extensive period of delay from July 20, 2017 until the filing of the application to dismiss on March 21, 2019, a delay of 20 months. Again, nothing was done during this period to move the matter ahead. The total time elapsed, from the filing of the notice of civil claim until the application to dismiss was filed, was eight years. It will be almost ten years by the time the matter goes to trial. There have been two periods, of approximately 35 months in total, where nothing was done. In my view, by any measure, this is an inordinate delay.[8] I now turn to whether the delay is excusable. In my view, it is not. There is no evidence from the plaintiff explaining the delay. Dr. Mann filed an affidavit but he provides no evidence whatsoever addressing the delay. Importantly, he does not provide any evidence saying that the delay was due to his counsel, nor does he provide evidence that he instructed his counsel to proceed diligently with the matter. He simply does not address delay at all.[9] Counsel for Dr. Mann submits that the delay was due to his being busy on other matters, but the affidavit evidence falls far short of establishing this. The affidavit of Jocelyn Molnar, filed April 10, 2019, simply addresses what matters plaintiff's counsel was involved in at various times. The affidavit does not connect those other matters to the delay here. It does not explain the lengthy delay in 2013 and 2014 and does not adequately explain the delay from July 2017. The evidence falls far short of establishing an excuse for the delay.[10] Even if I was satisfied that the evidence established the delay was solely due to plaintiff's counsel being busy with other matters, which I am not, I do not agree that this would be an adequate excuse. Counsel for the plaintiff was unable to provide any authority establishing that counsel's busy schedule is a valid excuse for delay. In contrast, the defendant refers me to Hughes v. Simpson Sears, [1988] 52 D.L.R. (4th) 553, where Justice Twaddle, writing on behalf of the Manitoba Court of Appeal, stated at p. 13 that:...Freedman, J.A. said that the overriding principle in cases of this kind is “essential justice”. There is no doubt that that is so, but it must mean justice to both parties, not just to one of them.In Law Society of Manitoba v. Eadie (judgment delivered on June 27, 1988), I stated my preference for a one-step application of the fundamental principle on which motions of this kind should be decided. The fundamental principle is that a plaintiff should not be deprived of his right to have his case decided on its merits unless he is responsible for undue delay which has prejudiced the other party. A plaintiff is responsible for delays occasioned by his solicitors. I have already dealt with the consequence of the solicitors' conduct being negligent. Once it is established that the delay is unreasonable having regard to the subject matter of the action, the complexity of the issues, and the explanation for it, the other matter to be considered is the prejudice to the defendant. It is in the task of balancing the plaintiff's right to proceed with the defendant's right not to be prejudiced by unreasonable delay that justice must be done.[Emphasis added][11] Additionally, based upon the evidence filed, the plaintiff and his counsel appear to have attended to other matters, both legal matters and professional matters in the case of the plaintiff, rather than give this matter any priority. The plaintiff appears to have been content to simply let this matter languish.[12] Accordingly, I find that the delay is inexcusable.[13] With respect to prejudice, such prejudice is presumed unless the prejudice is rebutted. Indeed, the presumption of prejudice is given even more weight in defamation cases: Samson v. Scaletta, 2016 BCSC 2598, at paras 40-43. The plaintiff has not filed any evidence rebutting the presumption of prejudice.[14] Moreover, the defendant has led actual evidence of actual prejudice. The evidence is that the defendant intended to call three witnesses at trial who would have provided evidence going to fair comment and malice. Those witnesses have now died. A fourth witness is no longer able to travel. Thus, in addition to finding that presumption of prejudice has not been rebutted, I also find that there has been actual prejudice to the defendant as a consequence of the delay.[15] Turning to the final factor, I have little hesitation in finding that, on balance, justice requires the action be dismissed. The parties are both in their eighties and Dr. Ball is in poor health. He has had this action hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles for eight years and he will need to wait until January 2021 before the matter proceeds to trial. That is a ten year delay from the original alleged defamatory statement. Other witnesses are also elderly or in poor health. The memories of all parties and witnesses will have faded by the time the matter goes to trial.[16] I find that, because of the delay, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a fair trial for the defendant. This is a relatively straightforward defamation action and should have been resolved long before now. That it has not been resolved is because the plaintiff has not given it the priority that he should have. In the circumstances, justice requires that the action be dismissed and, accordingly, I do hereby dismiss the action for delay.[17] Before concluding, I wish to note that the materials that have been filed on this application are grossly excessive in relation to the matters in issue. There are four large binders of materials filed by the plaintiff on the application to dismiss, plus one additional binder from the defendant. The binders contain multiple serial affidavits, many of which are replete with completely irrelevant evidence. In my view, this application could have been done and should have been done with one or two affidavits outlining the delay, the reasons for the delay, and the prejudice.[18] Those are my reasons, counsel. Costs?[19] MR. SCHERR: I would, of course, ask for costs for the defendant, given the dismissal of the action.[20] MR. MCCONCHIE: Costs follow the event. I have no quarrel with that.[21] THE COURT: All right. I agree. The costs will follow the event, so the defendant will have his costs of the application and also the costs of the action, since the action is dismissed.ERASING CLIMATE HISTORY TO CREATE A TEMPERATURE DECEPTIONThere is an abundance of evidence that the Medieval Warm period and the LIttle Ice age were real and global and there is no credible data to justify Michael Mann erasing these significant parts of the earth’s climate history.American history is replete with evidence of the Little Ice Age including George Washington’s famous march to Valley Forge suffering harsh winters.The story of that terrible winter has often been told. It was cold, but not quite cold enough, with abundant precipitation—sleet and freezing rain, calculated to drown roads in slush and wash out ferries and fords. Supplies disappeared. Men shivered in ragged summer uniforms, starved, and succumbed to disease. Worst, many officers gave up—not the likes of Henry Knox, Greene, Friedrich von Steuben, Anthony Wayne and many others, nor their wives—but the field officers essential to keeping the army functioning on a day to day basis. They resigned in droves.A Miracle of Leadership: George Washington at Valley Forge - Edward LengelAmerica’s Worst Winter EverBy Ray Raphael“For a Fortnight past the Troops both Officers and Men, have been almost perishing for want.” -George Washington, January 8, 1780BY CONNATIXIn January 1780, fighting in the Revolutionary War came to a standstill as Mother Nature transformed America into a frigid hell. For the only time in recorded history, all of the saltwater inlets, harbors and sounds of the Atlantic coastal plain, from North Carolina northeastward, froze over and remained closed to navigation for a period of a month or more. Sleighs, not boats, carried cords of firewood across New York Harbor from New Jersey to Manhattan. The upper Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and the York and James rivers in Virginia turned to ice. In Philadelphia, the daily high temperature topped the freezing mark only once during the month of January, prompting Timothy Matlack, the patriot who had inscribed the official copy of the Declaration of Independence, to complain that “the ink now freezes in my pen within five feet of the fire in my parlour, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”The weather took an especially harsh toll on the 7,460 patriot troops holed up with General George Washington in Morristown, N.J., a strategic site 30 miles west of the British command in New York City. On January 3, the encampment was engulfed by “one of the most tremendous snowstorms ever remembered,” army surgeon James Thacher wrote in his journal. “No man could endure its violence many minutes without danger of his life.” When tents blew off, soldiers were “buried like sheep under the snow…almost smothered in the storm.” The weather made it impossible to get supplies to the men, many of whom had no coats, shirts or shoes and were on the verge of starvation. “For a Fortnight past the Troops both Officers and Men, have been almost perishing for want,” George Washington wrote in a letter to civilian officials dated January 8.The winter at Valley Forge two years earlier is a celebrated part of America’s Revolutionary mythology, while its sequel at Morristown is now largely forgottenRef. America's Worst Winter EverPublished abstracts of research expose the tampering with history in Orwellian fashion as evidence of the Little Ice Age emerges around the world including China and the Southern hemisphere.GREAT WALL OF CHINA BUILT DURING MING DYNASTYClimatic ChangeNovember 2014, Volume 127, Issue 2, pp 169–182How climate change impacted the collapse of the Ming dynasty· Authors· Jingyun Zheng, Lingbo Xiao, Xiuqi Fang, Zhixin Hao Quansheng GeEmail author Beibei LiAbstractBased on the reconstructed temperatures, precipitation changes, and occurrences of extreme climate events, together with historical records on fiscal deterioration, food crises, and the frequencies of popular unrest, rebellions and wars, we identified three principal ways in which climate change contributed to the collapse in the Ming dynasty. Firstly, cooling, aridification, and desertification during a cold period destroyed the military farm system, which was the main supply system for the provisioning of government troops on the northern frontiers; these impacts increased the military expenditure from 64 % of total government expenditure in 1548–1569 to 76 % in 1570–1589 and thus aggravated the national fiscal crisis that occurred during the late Ming dynasty. Secondly, climate deterioration (e.g., cooling, aridification, and an increase in the frequencies of frost- and drought-related disasters, etc.) led to a 20–50 % reduction in the per capita production of raw grain in most areas of China, which resulted in widespread food crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of social structures during the last several decades of the Ming dynasty. Thirdly, the severe droughts occurring in 1627–1643 were a key trigger to the peasantry uprising. These droughts also played a significant role to promote the peasantry uprising, especially reviving the peasantry troops by recruitment of famine victims when they nearly perished in 1633 and 1638, and severely disrupting the food supply for the government troops, resulting in the final defeat of the government troops by the peasantry troops. This study contributes to an understanding of the climate-related mechanisms behind the collapse of the Ming dynasty, and provides a historical case study that enhances our understanding of the nature of interactions between climate change and social vulnerability.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1244-7Little Ice Age Climate near Beijing, China, Inferred from Historical and Stalagmite RecordsAuthors Weihong Qian YafenZhuhttps://doi.org/10.1006/qres.2001.2283Get rights and contentAbstractFour data sets yield information about Holocene climatic change in China at different scales of space and time: (a) 120-yr ground temperature and precipitation measurements covering eastern China; (b) two NOAA 10-yr 850 hPa wind records that highlight features of data set a; (c) an 1100-year record of annual calcite accumulation on a stalagmite near Beijing, and (d) Lamb-type average wetness and temperature data from Chinese historical records back to A.D. 1470 and 1450, respectively. Dry–wet fluctuations and cold–warm oscillations are inferred using the long-term stalagmite thickness series. Quasi-70, 140, 450, and 750-yr oscillations have been detected using a wavelet transform technique. A phase relationship between temperature and precipitation oscillations has been identified based on modern observations and historical records. In northern China, relatively lower temperatures correlate with periods when precipitation shifted from above to below normal. Three colder periods during the Little Ice Age (LIA) in China are inferred, centered in the late 14th century (750-yr oscillation), the early 17th century (450-yr), and the 19th century (140-yr). The latest cool period (1950s–1970s) is found at the 70-yr oscillation. Interdecadal drought–flood and cold–warm differences are explained using modern circulation patterns. LIA climate in China was likely controlled by East Asian monsoon circulation anomalies that were affected by variations in continent–ocean thermal contrast.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589401922835Those who claim Mann was right sometime focus on his numbers at the tip of the blade. This is a mistake as making the the stick flat with no temperature increase for a thousand years was the crazy and unjustified revision. His hockey stick with a flat stick had the effect of erased the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age that mattered for the radical claim that suddenly under industrialization humans are making the climate too hot with Co2.You see in these two graphs the Orwellian revision of conventional history by Michael Mann, yet he continues to refuse to show his data. The most insightful explanation comes from Dr. Richard Muller who is objective on this issue and has had direct experience with evaluating what happened.Hockey Stick graph is not ok today!"We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period!"ScootleRoyalePublished on 29 Oct 2010“Video of Dr David Deming's statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on December 6, 2006. Dr Deming reveals that in 1995 a leading scientist emailed him saying "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". A few years later, Michael Mann and the IPCC did just that by publishing the now throughly discredited hockey stick graph. “There is a lot of data showing that as of today the blade of the hockey is false also because of the pause in warming and now temperatures are falling.“Reflections on Mark Steyn’s ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’ about Dr. Michael MannGuest Blogger / March 29, 2017Given what happened today in live testimony before the House Science Commiittee where Dr. Mann was testifying, this review seems germane and timely.“Guest essay by Rick Wallace“Mark Steyn’s A Disgrace to the Profession is a compilation of scientific commentary on Michael Mann and his work and is a valuable antidote to the idea that questioning or criticizing this particular researcher is an overt admission of ignorance, let alone an “attack on science”. What I will argue in this essay is that Steyn has done serious students of the AGW hysteria an even greater service. In fact, this work reveals some features of the hysteria that are, I think, critical for understanding it in depth. The present essay, which will elaborate on this point, is intended as a contribution to the study of what one of those quoted in Steyn’s book called “pathological science”.“For those who aren’t familiar with the work, Steyn’s book is a collection of highly critical comments by scientists of varying degrees of eminence concerning Michael Mann and his (in)famous “hockey stick” temperature graph. The book emanated from a still-ongoing lawsuit that Mann filed against Steyn for writing in a National Review Online article that the hockey stick was fraudulent. Steyn was struck by the fact that, when it came time to file third-party amicus briefs, no one filed a brief in Mann’s defense. So he began combing the Web and other resources, and found a plethora of critical comments that he collected into one volume.2,3“In fact, by now almost everyone, skeptic or warmest, has backed away from this very flawed piece of evidence.“The Medieval Warm Period – when Greenland got its name and was extensively farmed, and vineyards flourished in much of England – was a matter of uncontroversial historical record. But once you’ve decided to “repeal“it, it’s amazing how easy it is.” (Steyn, 33)“[The earlier account of past temperatures] was simply expunged from the 2001 IPCC report, much as Trotsky and Yezhov were removed from Stalin’s photographs by dark-room specialists in the later years of the dictator’s reign. There was no explanation of why both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, very clearly shown in the 1990 report, had simply disappeared eleven years later.” (Steyn, 10)“”The hockey stick is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence,” wrote Oxford physicist Jonathan Jones. Nature never asked for any and, when it fell to others to demonstrate the flaws of the stick, the journal declined to share their findings with its readers. Mann and a few close allies controlled the fora that mattered, and banished any dissidents. “It’s a completely rigged peer-review system,” concluded Cal Tech’s Dr David Rutledge.” (Steyn, 6)[Emphasis added]Reflections on Mark Steyn’s ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’ about Dr. Michael MannMann has argued that erasing Medieval history is justified because the warming and cooling only happened in Europe and was not global. This claim is contradicted with many peer reviewed studies showing Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age cooling around the world at the relevant times.Medieval Temperature Trends in Africa and ArabiaA synthesis of paleotemperature reconstructions from published case studies suggests warm onshore temperatures persisted across most of Afro-Arabia between 1000 and 1200 CE.By Terri Cook 9 February 2018Reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures have repeatedly indicated the Afro-Arabian region experienced climate perturbations, including an extended period of anomalously warm conditions, during medieval times. Because this Medieval Climate Anomaly represents the closest analogue to modern warming, it defines a crucial baseline by which modern postindustrial climate trends can be compared.Although the Medieval Climate Anomaly has also been documented in other parts of the world, its occurrence on the Arabian Peninsula and the African continent, which together comprise about one quarter of Earth’s landmass, is less certain.This is due to the lack of high-quality proxy records, such as ice cores and tree rings, in the region. To help fill this gap, Lüning et al. correlated and synthesized the findings of 44 published paleotemperature case studies from across the region and mapped the resulting trends of the anomaly’s central period, which lasted from about 1000 to 1200 CE.A comprehensive review of paleotemperature reconstructions paints a picture of warm onshore temperatures across Afro-Arabia between 1000 and 1200 AD.To better characterize temperature fluctuations in Africa and Arabia during medieval times, researchers synthesized paleotemperature records from across the region, including the Tanzanian portion of Lake Tanganyika (pictured here). A core from this lake represents one of the few medieval paleotemperature reconstructions that are available from the East Africa Rift. Credit: Andreas31, CC BY-SA 3.0The results indicate that the majority of onshore Afro-Arabian sites experienced warming during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. The one exception was the southern Levant, which endured a cold phase during the same interval. From offshore records, the team also documented cooling in locations that currently experience cold-water upwellings but generally warmer conditions away from these upwelling zones during the same period.In some records, the researchers noted the presence of obvious cold spikes during intervals corresponding to decreased solar activity or declining ocean cycles. This, they argue, suggests that solar forcing and changing ocean circulation are the most likely causes of medieval era climate change.This study represents a step toward globally characterizing the Medieval Climate Anomaly, an improved understanding of which will help scientists refine global climate models and improve hindcasting. To date, however, very few paleotemperature data exist from Afro-Arabia; the authors note that all of West Africa is currently represented by a single data point. Systematic research will be necessary to adequately reconstruct medieval paleotemperature patterns and their causes across this vast region.More evidence that the Medieval Warming Period was global, not regionalPaleoceanography Reseaerch Article“Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and ArabiaSebastian Lüning Mariusz Gałka Fritz VahrenholtFirst published: 26 October 2017 Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and Arabia Cited by: 6“AbstractThe Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) is a well‐recognized climate perturbation in many parts of the world, with a core period of 1000–1200 Common Era. Here we present a palaeotemperature synthesis for the MCA in Africa and Arabia, based on 44 published localities. The data sets have been thoroughly correlated and the MCA trends palaeoclimatologically mapped. The vast majority of available Afro‐Arabian onshore sites suggest a warm MCA, with the exception of the southern Levant where the MCA appears to have been cold. MCA cooling has also been documented in many segments of the circum‐Africa‐Arabian upwelling systems, as a result of changes in the wind systems which were leading to an intensification of cold water upwelling. Offshore cores from outside upwelling systems mostly show warm MCA conditions. The most likely key drivers of the observed medieval climate change are solar forcing and ocean cycles. Conspicuous cold spikes during the earliest and latest MCA may help to discriminate between solar (Oort Minimum) and ocean cycle (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, AMO) influence. Compared to its large share of nearly one quarter of the world's landmass, data from Africa and Arabia are significantly underrepresented in global temperature reconstructions of the past 2,000 years. Onshore data are still absent for most regions in Africa and Arabia, except for regional data clusters in Morocco, South Africa, the East African Rift, and the Levant coast. In order to reconstruct land palaeotemperatures more robustly over Africa and Arabia, a systematic research program is needed.”Citing LiteratureNumber of times cited according to CrossRef: 6Sebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Antarctica, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.109251, (109251), (2019).CrossrefChengcheng Liu, Hong Yan, Haobai Fei, Xiaolin Ma, Wenchao Zhang, Ge Shi, Willie Soon, John Dodson and Zhisheng An, Temperature seasonality and ENSO variability in the northern South China Sea during the Medieval Climate Anomaly interval derived from the Sr/Ca ratios of Tridacna shell, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 10.1016/j.jseaes.2019.103880, (103880), (2019).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Iliya Bauchi Danladi, Theophilus Aanuoluwa Adagunodo and Fritz Vahrenholt, Hydroclimate in Africa during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 10.1016/j.palaeo.2018.01.025, 495, (309-322), (2018).CrossrefSarah Coffinet, Arnaud Huguet, Laurent Bergonzini, Nikolai Pedentchouk, David Williamson, Christelle Anquetil, Mariusz Gałka, Piotr Kołaczek, Monika Karpińska-Kołaczek, Amos Majule, Fatima Laggoun-Défarge, Thomas Wagner and Sylvie Derenne, Impact of climate change on the ecology of the Kyambangunguru crater marsh in southwestern Tanzania during the Late Holocene, Quaternary Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.07.038, 196, (100-117), (2018).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Florencia Paula Bamonte, Felipe García Rodríguez and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in South America, Quaternary International, 10.1016/j.quaint.2018.10.041, (2018).CrossrefSebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, Felipe García-Rodríguez and Fritz Vahrenholt, The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Oceania, Environmental Reviews, 10.1139/er-2019-0012, (1-10), (2019).CrossrefSupporting InformationFilename Descriptionpalo20457-sup-0001-2017PA003237-SI.pdfPDF document, 3.8 MB Supporting Information S1palo20457-sup-0002-2017PA003237-ds01.zipapplication/x-zip-compressed, 304 KB Data Set S1″Warming and Cooling: The Medieval Climate Anomaly in Africa and Arabia“Big data finds the Medieval Warm Period – no denial hereJennifer Marohasy22 August 20177:49 AM“According to author Leo Tolstoy, born at the very end of the Little Ice Age, in quite a cold country:The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.So, our new technical paper in GeoResJ (vol. 14, pages 36-46) will likely be ignored. Because after applying the latest big data technique to six 2,000 year-long proxy-temperature series we cannot confirm that recent warming is anything but natural – what might have occurred anyway, even if there was no industrial revolution.Over the last few years, I’ve worked with Dr John Abbot using artificial neural networks (ANN) to forecast monthly rainfall. We now have a bunch of papers in international climate science journals showing these forecasts to be more skilful than output from general circulation models.During the past year, we’ve extended this work to estimating what global temperatures would have been during the twentieth century in the absence of human-emission of carbon dioxide.We began by deconstructing the six-proxy series from different geographic regions – series already published in the mainstream climate science literature. One of these, the Northern Hemisphere composite series begins in 50 AD, ends in the year 2000, and is derived from studies of pollen, lake sediments, stalagmites and boreholes.Typical of most such temperature series, it zigzags up and down while showing two rising trends: the first peaks about 1200 AD and corresponds with a period known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), while the second peaks in 1980 and then shows decline. In between, is the Little Ice Age (LIA), which according to the Northern Hemisphere composite bottomed-out in 1650 AD. (Of course, the MWP corresponded with a period of generally good harvests in England – when men dressed in tunics and built grand cathedrals with tall spires. It preceded the LIA when there was famine and the Great Plague of London.)Ignoring for the moment the MWP and LIA, you might want to simply dismiss this temperature series on the basis it peaks in 1980: it doesn’t continue to rise to the very end of the record: to the year 2000?In fact, this decline is typical of most such proxy reconstructions – derived from pollen, stalagmites, boreholes, coral cores and especially tree rings. Within mainstream climate science the decline after 1980 is referred to as “the divergence problem”, and then hidden.In denial of this problem, leading climate scientists have been known to even graft temperature measurements from thermometers onto the proxy record after 1980 to literally ‘hide the decline’. Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, aptly described the technique as a ‘trick’.Grafting thermometer data onto the end of the proxy record generally ‘fixes’ the problem after 1980, while remodelling effectively flattens the Medieval Warm Period.There are, however, multiple lines of evidence indicating it was about a degree warmer across Europe during the MWP – corresponding with the 1200 AD rise in our Northern Hemisphere composite. In fact, there are oodles of published technical papers based on proxy records that provide a relatively warm temperature profile for this period. This was before the Little Ice Age when it was too cold to inhabit Greenland.The modern inhabitation of Upernavik, in north west Greenland, only began in 1826, which corresponds with the beginning of the industrial age. So, the end of the Little Ice Age corresponds with the beginning of industrialisation. But did industrialisation cause the global warming? Tolstoy’s ‘intelligent man’ would immediately reply: But yes!In our new paper in GeoResJ, we make the assumption that an artificial neural network – remember our big data/machine learning technique – trained on proxy temperatures up until 1830, would be able to forecast the combined effect of natural climate cycles through the twentieth century.Using the proxy record from the Northern Hemisphere composite, decomposing this through signal analysis and then using the resulting component sine waves as input into an ANN, John Abbot and I generated forecasts for the period from 1830 to 2000.Our results show up to 1°C of warming. The average divergence between the proxy temperature record and our ANN projection is just 0.09 degree Celsius. This suggests that even if there had been no industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels, there would have still been warming through the twentieth century – to at least 1980, and of almost 1°C.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, relying on General Circulation Models, and giving us the Paris Accord, also estimates warming of approximately 1°C, but claims this is all our fault (human caused).For more information, including charts and a link to the full paper read Jennifer Marohasy’s latest blog post.Illustration: Detail from Peasants before an Inn, Jan Steen, The Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague.”New relevance of the history of the Little Ice Age as fear of too much warming shifts to the reverse concern of catastrophic freezing.Australia has record winter snowfall in July.Are You Ready For A Catastrophically Cold Winter?Published on November 11, 2019Written by Michael Snydercredit: i.ytimg.comExperts are warning us that this will be a “freezing, frigid, and frosty” winter, and even though the official beginning of winter is still over a month away, it already feels like that in much of the country right now.Over the next several days, it will literally feel like it is mid-January in much of the central and eastern portions of the United States. Many areas will be hit by temperatures that are 30 degrees below normal, and heavy snow is expected in some areas of the Midwest.Unfortunately, this bitterly cold weather is coming at a very bad time for corn farmers. According to the latest USDA crop progress report, only 52 percent of the corn in the middle of the country has been harvested. So about half of the corn is still sitting out there, and these extraordinarily low temperatures could potentially be absolutely devastating.In essence, this cold front threatens to put an exclamation point on an absolutely horrific year for U.S. farmers. According to the National Weather Service, we could possibly see “170 potential daily record cold high temperatures” over the next three days…“The National Weather Service is forecasting 170 potential daily record cold high temperatures Monday to Wednesday,” tweeted Weather Channel meteorologist Jonathan Erdman. “A little taste of January in November.”The temperature nosedive will be a three-day process as a cold front charges across the central and eastern U.S. from Sunday into Tuesday.We are being told that low temperatures in certain portions of Texas could plunge into the teens, and all across the Upper Midwest we could see low temperatures that are well below zero.Of course this is not the first wave of record cold weather to come rolling through this season. During the month of October, a couple of major blizzards roared through the Midwest and countless new cold temperature records were established.And unfortunately we should expect a lot more bitter weather in the months ahead. Both the Farmers’ Almanac and the Old Farmer’s Almanac are projecting that this upcoming winter will be unusually cold and snowy…Not long after the Farmers’ Almanac suggested it would be a “freezing, frigid, and frosty” season, the *other* Farmer’s Almanac has released its annual weather forecast—and it’s equally upsetting.While the first publication focused on the cold temperatures anticipated this winter, the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts that excessive snowfall will be the most noteworthy part of the season.The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which was founded in 1792, says that the upcoming winter “will be remembered for strong storms” featuring heavy rain, sleet, and a lot of snow. The periodical actually used the word “snow-verload” to describe the conditions we can expect in the coming months.So why is this happening?It is actually quite simple.During a solar minimum, solar activity drops to very low levels, and that tends to mean lower temperatures on Earth.Earlier this year, a panel of experts gathered to discuss the current solar minimum, and they came to the conclusion that it “could last for years”…If you like solar minimum, good news: It could last for years. That was one of the predictions issued last week by an international panel of experts who gathered at NOAA’s annual Space Weather Workshop to forecast the next solar cycle. If the panel is correct, already-low sunspot counts will reach a nadir sometime between July 2019 and Sept 2020, followed by a slow recovery toward a new Solar Maximum in 2023-2026.“We expect Solar Cycle 25 will be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak maximum, preceded by a long, deep minimum,” says panel co-chair Lisa Upton, a solar physicist with Space Systems Research Corp.But that would actually be a best case scenario.There are others that believe that we have now entered a “grand solar minimum” such as the one that our planet experienced several hundred years ago. That one was known as “the Maunder Minimum”, and it resulted in a “little ice age”…The extreme example happened between 1645 and 1715 when the normal 11-year sunspot cycle vanished. This period, called the Maunder Minimum, was accompanied by bitterly cold winters in the American colonies. Fishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland were abandoned. Icebergs were seen near the English channel. The canals of Venice froze. It was a time of great hardship.Ultimately, the longer winters and shorter summers during the “Maunder Minimum” resulted in famine all over the globe, and multitudes ended up perishing…The Maunder Minimum is the most famous cold period of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures plummeted in Europe (Figs. 14.3–14.7), the growing season became shorter by more than a month, the number of snowy days increased from a few to 20–30, the ground froze to several feet, alpine glaciers advanced all over the world, glaciers in the Swiss Alps encroached on farms and buried villages, tree-lines in the Alps dropped, sea ports were blocked by sea ice that surrounded Iceland and Holland for about 20 miles, wine grape harvests diminished, and cereal grain harvests failed, leading to mass famines (Fagan, 2007). The Thames River and canals and rivers of the Netherlands froze over during the winter (Fig. 14.3). The population of Iceland decreased by about half. In parts of China, warm-weather crops that had been grown for centuries were abandoned. In North America, early European settlers experienced exceptionally severe winters.So far in 2019, there have been more than 200 days without a single sunspot on the sun.We do not know when solar activity will return to normal, but for now we should all prepare for a bitterly cold winter.Beyond that, we had better hope that we have not entered another “Maunder Minimum”, because right now we are struggling to feed everyone on the planet even in the best of years.Despite all of our advanced technology, we remain deeply dependent on the weather. Even a year or two of bad harvests could potentially be absolutely catastrophic, and the mainstream media will not tell us the truth until it is way too late to do anything about it.CommentsJAMES MATKINNovember 11, 2019 at 8:12 pm | #Snow predictions demolish false global warming crisis –“2000 Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, predicts that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” See here.“2001 IPCC TAR (AR3) predicts that milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms. See here.“2004 Adam Watson, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Banchory, Aberdeenshire, said the Scottish skiing industry had no more than 20 years left. See here.Some Failed Climate PredictionsThink about why alarmists thought warming would end freezing winters in the future and you will see that if the earth is to ever exit the current Quaternary Ice Age [look it up in google] polar ice must become ice free in the summer. But heavy snowfall in the winter with the SNOW albedo keeps temperatures too cold to melt the glaciers in the spring and summer. Therefore the only way for ice free summers is for no or little snow in the winter. Because this is so far from happening around the world this issue becomes a silver bullet demolishing the fear of global warming and the need for the Paris Climate Accord.Are You Ready For A Catastrophically Cold Winter? | PSI IntlThe Little Ice Age is a history of resilience and surprises – Dagomar Degroot | Aeon EssaysSurviving Little Ice Age possible with “bold economic and social change” new ‘lessons history’Little Ice Age lessonsThe world’s last climate crisis demonstrates that surviving is possible if bold economic and social change is embracedWinter Landscape with Ice Skaters (c1608), by Hendrick Avercamp. Avercamp was deaf and mute and specialised in painting scenes of the Netherlands in winter. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamMidway through the 17th century, Dutch whalers bound for the Arctic noticed that the climate was changing. For decades, they had waited for the retreat of sea ice in late spring, then pursued bowhead whales in bays off the Arctic Ocean islands of Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen. They had set up whaling stations and even towns in those bays, with ovens to boil blubber into oil. Europe’s growing population demanded oil for lighting and cooking, and for industrial purposes that included the manufacture of soap. Now, thick sea ice kept whalers from reaching their ovens even in mid-summer. Climate change, it seemed, had doomed their trade.Whaling Grounds in the Arctic Ocean by Abraham Storck, 1654-1708. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamYet in the frigid decades of the late-17th century, the Dutch whaling industry boomed. Whalers discovered how to boil blubber aboard their ships or on sea ice, then learned how to transport it from the Arctic to furnaces in Amsterdam. There, labourers boiled the oil until it reached a purity never achieved in the Arctic, giving Dutch whalers a competitive edge in the European market. Shipwrights greased and reinforced the hulls of whaling vessels so that they could slide off thick ice and survive the occasional collision. The governing council of the Dutch Republic – the country that would become the Netherlands of today – allowed a corporate monopoly on whaling to expire, and thereby encouraged competition between hundreds of new whalers. Ironically, by provoking crisis, climate change spurred a golden age for the Dutch whaling industry.Many of us think of today’s extraordinarily rapid, human-caused climate change as an existential threat to humanity, one that will inevitably wipe away cities, industries, countries, perhaps even our species – or at least our way of life. Many historians, archaeologists and natural scientists have thought about the modest, natural climate changes that preceded the 20th century in much the same way: as existential threats to past civilisations. In their accounts, communities and societies wedded to old ways of life had little recourse when previously predictable weather patterns abruptly changed. Time and again, they argue, past climate changes provoked civilisational ‘collapse’: a sudden unravelling of social and economic complexity, culminating in a catastrophic decline in population. In popular books and articles, journalists and scientists draw on these ideas to argue that because natural climate changes destroyed past civilisations, anthropogenic warming could well doom ours.Yet new research is telling us something very different. It is revealing that many – perhaps most – communities successfully endured past climate changes. Some bounced back quickly after severe and previously unusual weather; others avoided disaster entirely. Many adapted to become more resilient to damage, or to exploit new opportunities. Climate change in fact repeatedly altered environments so they better suited how some societies grew food, made money, or waged war.Even in resilient societies, thousands died amid the most extreme weather unleashed by past climate changes. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that our ancestors often acted decisively and creatively to make the best out of trying times. Far from an outlier, the story of Dutch whalers in the Arctic is merely one example in a history of ingenuity in the face of past climate change.Sign up to our newsletterUpdates on everything new at Aeon.DailyWeeklySee our newsletter privacy policy hereIf you follow the weather, you will no doubt have heard that a day, month or year is the hottest on record. It might be tempting to assume that this record involves all of natural or at least human history, but it really refers only to the almost century-and-a-half in which weather stations equipped with accurate thermometers gradually spread across the world. For much of that period, human greenhouse gas emissions have been the driving force behind changes in Earth’s average annual temperature.To determine just how unusual these global changes are, how they might transform local environments, and how they are linked to the changing chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere, researchers have searched far and wide for evidence of earlier climatic variability. By measuring the thickness of rings embedded in the trunks of trees, for example, they have traced how the growth rates of trees scattered around the Earth accelerated or slowed in past centuries. They have compared these fluctuating growth rates to recent, reliable records of temperature and precipitation, and thereby developed an understanding of how different trees respond to climatic trends. With that knowledge, they have used growth rings in living trees, fossilised wood and even timber embedded in ancient buildings to reconstruct changes in Earth’s climate from antiquity to the present.Tree rings in bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) wood. Photo by James St John/Flickr; licensed under CC BY 2.0Other scientists have drilled deep into the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, and exhumed long cylinders – ‘cores’ – of densely packed ice. The deepest ice in Antarctic cores might be millions of years old. Just as tree trunks are wound with growth rings, the cores are stacked with layers that register the annual accumulation of snow. By comparing the shifting ratios of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in these layers, scientists learn how precipitation patterns have fluctuated around the poles, which in turn reveals much about the history of Earth’s average annual temperature. Bubbles trapped in cores even contain tiny samples of the ancient atmosphere that, when carefully measured, reveal historic changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other gases.Climate ‘proxy’ sources such as tree rings or ice cores register the influence of past climate change. They do not directly record it as a thermometer might. Their ‘resolution’ – a word that could be roughly defined as their precision in time and space – might be quite low, and each source tends to work best for a particular period or place. Historians have learned to help scientists fill some of the gaps by using archaeological, textual or oral records of past weather. Perhaps the most abundant and most useful are logbooks written by European sailors in the age of sail. Because sailors had to keep track of the wind in order to navigate when out of sight of the coast, logbooks contain rich records of daily or even hourly weather.Under the scrutiny of historians and scientists, Earth’s past climate has gradually and grudgingly divulged its secrets, one imperfect source at a time. It turns out that our planet is a volatile place, with a climate that never stops changing.Global cooling in even the chilliest decades probably did not exceed 0.5 degrees CelsiusMidway through the 13th century, for example, parts of the Northern Hemisphere started cooling. The causes were complex, but involved some combination of cyclical changes in the orientation of Earth’s rotational axis, repeated declines in solar radiation, random fluctuations in oceanic and atmospheric currents, and volcanic eruptions that temporarily shrouded the Earth in veils of sunlight-scattering sulphur dioxide.Temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere fluctuated for a while before cooling sharply in the 15th century. They rebounded briefly in the 16th, then dropped across much of the world – including the Southern Hemisphere – later in that century. Temperatures in some places warmed briefly halfway through the 17th century, then cooled again until early in the 18th. After several decades of modest warming, renewed cooling beset much of the world until midway through the 19th century, when persistent warming finally set in.Global temperatures over the past 2,000 years, according to different statistical methods. The black line represents modern warming, as measured by meteorological instruments (such as thermometers in weather stations)These cooling waves are together called the ‘Little Ice Age’, which is more than a bit of a misnomer. Global cooling in even the chilliest decades of the 17th and 19th centuries – the coldest of the period – probably did not exceed 0.5 degrees Celsius. Unlike today’s warming, cooling reached different places at different times, with more or less severity, and hot years could interrupt even the coldest decades. Glaciers did expand out of many mountain ranges, but this was not an ‘Ice Age’.Nor was it ‘little’. Temperature anomalies were probably longer-lasting and more severe than any had been for millennia, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. They brought short-term changes in ocean currents and wind patterns that repeatedly drenched some regions in torrential rain, or afflicted others with landmark droughts. For those who lived through it, the Little Ice Age was no trivial matter.Archaeologists and historians have long argued that many societies were woefully unprepared for the cooling of the Little Ice Age, and therefore suffered tremendous losses. When the Little Ice Age first chilled Greenland, for example, the sedentary agricultural practices that Vikings brought with them from Europe were no longer viable. Yet the Vikings, they supposed, stubbornly adhered to those practices, victims of cultural assumptions that they could not abandon. As temperatures continued to drop in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Viking settlements disappeared.The remains of Hvalsey Church, the location of the last written record of the Greenlandic Vikings. Photo courtesy WikipediaAt around the same time, waves of bubonic plague swept across Eurasia, killing tens of millions. Some scholars have argued that torrential rains associated with the onset of a newly unstable European climate in the early 14th century ruined harvests and spurred the rise of disease among cattle, leading to a Great Famine that killed perhaps 10 per cent of the continent’s population. Malnutrition in children can permanently weaken immune systems, and those who were children during the Great Famine were especially vulnerable to the later arrival of the plague. Others claim that precipitation extremes provoked by the onset of a cool but unstable climate drove booms and busts in the population of rodent vectors for the plague. When rodents in central Asia multiplied, fleas that carried plague did too; when they declined, fleas overcrowded on surviving rodents fled in desperation to new hosts: humans living nearby. After such migrations, waves of plague slowly travelled west towards Europe.Researchers once knew little about the effects of the Little Ice outside of Europe, but no longer. It now seems, for example, that the frigid decades of the 15th century brought unseasonal frost across Mesoamerica, repeatedly ruining maize harvests in the Aztec empire. Food shortages provoked famine and, if surviving accounts can be believed, even cannibalism, weakening the empire just before the arrival of European ships and soldiers.Across Europe and North America, the 17th century was the coldest of the Little Ice Age. Researchers have argued that, by then, the world’s great empires had grown vulnerable to even the slightest shift in environmental conditions. Populations that expanded in the warmer decades of the 16th century increasingly depended on crops grown on marginally productive farmland. Imperial governments financed ever-more expensive wars using surpluses siphoned from far-flung hinterlands. With rural areas already stretched to breaking point, temperature and precipitation extremes provoked calamitous food shortages. Famines led to widespread starvation, migration and epidemics, which in turn kindled rebellions, civil wars and conflict between states. According to the historian Geoffrey Parker, this ‘fatal synergy’ between climatic cooling, starvation, disease and conflict culminated in a ‘global crisis’ that killed perhaps a third of the world’s population.Mutually reinforcing environmental trends exacerbated already-dangerous military and economic pressuresOver much of the world, the Little Ice Age reached its coldest point in the early 19th century, with the chilliest decade of all following in the wake of a massive volcanic eruption in 1809 and the cataclysmic detonation of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. Researchers have traced how summer frost ruined crops across China, especially in the province of Yunnan, where millions starved to death. Cooling also weakened the temperature differential between land and water, which delayed the vital rains of the Indian monsoon and thereby unleashed famine and epidemics across India.The caldera left behind by the Tambora eruption in 1815, which blew away much of the mountain. Photo courtesy WikipediaYet a new wave of research is revealing previously overlooked examples of creativity and adaptability even in communities that suffered most as Earth’s climate changed. Let us revisit, for example, the plight of the Vikings in medieval Greenland. Archaeologists now know that Viking settlers did not simply bring the same, inflexible set of subsistence strategies to every environment they colonised. In Greenland, for instance, Viking hunters learned to travel for hundreds of miles to kill walrus and harvest their ivory and hides. Sailors in longboats would bring these commodities to Europe in exchange for iron and other supplies that were difficult to obtain in the Arctic.As the north cooled in the 13th century, Viking colonists developed an innovative irrigation system that increased hay harvests, while reducing their dependence on agriculture by hunting more seals and caribou. At first, Vikings in Greenland therefore adapted well to a cooler climate. Then, in the 14th century, the Thule – ancestors of today’s Inuit and Inupiat peoples – migrated into Greenland and clashed with Vikings over access to vital hunting grounds. European tastes also shifted away from walrus ivory, robbing the Greenlandic Vikings of their main export. It was only in this context – with several crises unfolding at once – that climatic cooling started to unravel the lives and livelihoods of Vikings in Greenland.The climatic story, too, is more complex than it once seemed. Cooling by itself might not have done in the Vikings. Rather, local and regional increases in the frequency and severity of storms; the extent and persistence of sea ice; and the variability and unpredictability of weather together disrupted Viking trade, hunting activities and agriculture. It was only when faced with all these challenges that the Vikings eventually disappeared from Greenland.It now seems that our ancestors were more than hapless victims in the face of climate change. In Greenland, cooling did not simply cause the destruction of stubborn agriculturalists, as scholars once believed. Rather, it was part of shifting and mutually reinforcing environmental trends that exacerbated already-dangerous military and economic pressures. Caught in that complex vice, the Vikings endured until they no longer could.Let us return to the Dutch Republic, a little country that has left behind a voluminous record of its travails in the frigid 17th century. At first glance it, too, was swept up in the global crisis. Scarcely a year went by that the Republic was not at war, if not in Europe then in the far-flung reaches of an embattled empire. Simmering tensions between different religious and political factions repeatedly erupted in mob violence and even, briefly, the beginnings of civil war. Between invasion and revolts, the existence of the Republic repeatedly looked uncertain. Taxation, public debt and the cost of labour soared over the course of the 17th century, while previously competitive industries, from textile manufacturing to brewing, declined. Powerful storms, a feature of the Little Ice Age in northwestern Europe, repeatedly broke through Dutch dikes and sluices, drowning thousands. Small wonder that researchers have grouped the Republic with other examples of climate-caused crisis in the 17th century.Yet take a step back, and the Dutch experience of climate change seems completely different. The Dutch economy boomed for much of the late-16th and 17th centuries, so that per-capita wealth was higher in the Republic than it was anywhere else in the world. Even in the face of economic headwinds later in the 17th century, the economy was flexible enough to transform itself, rather than decline. The Republic’s population soared, too, and urbanisation in the coastal provinces had little parallel until the 20th century. Infrastructure rapidly improved, and commerce expanded globally until the Dutch became the world’s leading trading nation. The Dutch army and especially its navy won battles and wars against far more populous nations, and the Republic became, for a while, Europe’s leading maritime power. Culture and science underwent such a remarkable efflorescence that the 17th century is still remembered by some as the Dutch ‘Golden Age’.To some extent, the Republic’s successes were partly a product of Dutch resilience to the Little Ice Age. People in coastal cities, for example, had diverse diets and could therefore cope with shortages in a particular food. Urban charities provided for the poor, who were particularly vulnerable to harvest failures in other countries. Climate change also seems to have benefitted the Dutch. Much of the Republic’s economic dynamism stemmed from activities at sea, where complex changes in patterns of prevailing wind mattered more than cooling. These changes shortened Dutch commercial voyages and often helped Dutch war fleets more effectively harness the wind when sailing into battle.A Dutch icebreaker, designed to break harbour ice into pieces for use in cellars. Courtesy the Rijksmuseum, AmsterdamClimate change did pose severe challenges for the Dutch and, when it did, the Dutch often adapted creatively. When storms sparked a series of urban fires across Europe, for example, Dutch inventors developed and then exported new firefighting technologies and practices. When winter ice choked harbours and halted traffic on essential canals, the Dutch invented skates and refined icebreakers. Merchants set up fairs on the ice that attracted thousands from afar, and pioneered insurance policies that protected them from the risks of storms at sea.Both Europe and the Americas now seem like hotbeds of resilience and adaptation to climate changeOther examples of societies that thrived during the Little Ice Age are now coming into focus. In the Americas, Indigenous communities appear to have been especially inventive and resilient in the face of the Little Ice Age. In the 16th and 17th centuries, for example, Neutral Iroquoians in Northeastern America adapted to a cooling climate by shifting away from sedentary agriculture, prioritising hunting and building smaller settlements. Neighbouring Iroquioan communities, by contrast, migrated and depended on decentralised social networks to share increasingly scarce resources. Some Algonquian societies adopted the opposite approach, abandoning egalitarian social orders in order to more effectively defend cornfields from rival communities. Wabanaki raiders used an Indigenous technology, the snowshoe, to outmanoeuvre English soldiers. And in the American Southwest, Mojave peoples learned how to store and transport food as effectively as any Dutch merchant.Comanche Indians Chasing Buffalo with Lances and Bows (1846-1848), by George Catlin. Courtesy WikipediaLike the Dutch Republic, the vast Comanche polity that surged to prominence across the 18th-century Great Plains seems both to have benefitted from and adapted to the cooling of the Little Ice Age. Beginning in the 16th century, chilly, rainy weather encouraged bison to migrate and then expand rapidly across the plains. While many Indigenous societies moved to take advantage, the Comanche soon dominated them by combining guns and horses for both hunting and raiding. By exploiting the vast and growing bison herds, the Comanche of the 18th century gained the wealth to raid or trade with societies across the entire Great Plains region. When frost or drought provoked food shortages in one community, another far away usually experienced different weather and therefore had enough supplies to make up the shortfall.Europe and the Americas: both continents once looked like epicentres of a global climate crisis. Yet increasingly, both now seem like hotbeds not only of vulnerability to climate change, but also of resilience and adaptation. Different communities and even individuals within societies experienced climate change very differently, and there does not seem to have been a common, dismal fate shared by all who faced the coldest centuries of the Little Ice Age.Our tendency in both popular media and academia to tell simplistic climate-change disaster stories has not served us well, either in understanding the past or in preparing for the future. Popular misconceptions that humanity is doomed – that we are, as the US presidential candidate Andrew Yang put it recently, ‘10 years too late’ – threaten to discourage the very action that could still limit anthropogenic climate change to manageable levels. Far less defensible assumptions that climate change has happened before and is therefore nothing to worry about – ahistorical nonsense often fronted by those who once denied the very existence of human-caused warming – pose even greater obstacles to urgent action. It is crucial that we expand the space between these harmful extremes. Writing more nuanced histories of past climate change is one way to do it.Those histories cannot reveal how exactly we will cope with extreme warming. The environmental challenges we face are far greater than those overcome by the Dutch or Comanche, but our means of understanding and confronting them are greater, too. Yet the past can reveal deep truths – parables – that might otherwise have remained hidden. It suggests, for example, that relatively small environmental shocks can provoke outsized human responses, especially in times when economic or political systems are strained to the breaking point. Yet it also reveals that climate change does not simply determine human outcomes, as some have assumed.The past tells us that when climatic trends make it impossible to live in the same city, grow food in the same way or continue existing economic relationships, the result for a society is not invariably crisis and collapse. Individuals, communities and societies can respond in surprising ways, and crisis – if it does come – could provoke some of the most productive innovations of all. Those responses, in turn, yield still more transformations within evolving societies. If that was true in the past, it is even more true today, as seismic political and cultural changes coincide with the breakneck development and democratisation of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and other revolutionary technologies.Most attempts to estimate the economic or geopolitical impacts of future warming therefore involve little more than educated guesswork. The future is hard to predict – perhaps harder than it ever was – and both collapse and prosperity seem possible in the century to come. So let us approach the future with open minds. Rather than resign ourselves to disaster, let us work hard to implement radical policies – such as the Green New Deal – that go beyond simply preserving what we have now, and instead promise a genuinely better world for our children.Environmental history History of technology The environmentThe Little Ice Age is a history of resilience and surprises – Dagomar Degroot | Aeon EssaysUsing Patterns of Recurring Climate Cycles to Predict Future Climate ChangesD.J. Easterbrook, in Evidence-Based Climate Science (Second Edition), 2016“2.3.3 Medieval Warm Period (900–1300 AD)The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is the most contentious of the late Holocene climatic oscillations because of claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CO2 alarmists that it didn't really happen, ie, the basis for the infamous “hockey stick” assertion of no climate changes until CO2 increase after 1950.Oxygen isotope data from the GISP2 Greenland ice core clearly show a prominent MWP (Fig. 21.8) between 900 and 1300 AD. It was followed by global cooling and the beginning of the Little Ice AgeFigure 21.8. Oxygen isotope curve from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. (Red = warm, blue = cool.)Plotted from data by Grootes, P.M., Stuiver, M., 1997. Oxygen 18/16 variability in Greenland snow and ice with 103 to 105–year time resolution. Journal of Geophysical Research 102, 26455–26470 data.The MWP is also conspicuous on reconstruction of sea surface temperature near Iceland (Fig. 21.9; Sicre et al., 2008).Sign in to download full-size imageFigure 21.9. Summer sea surface temperatures near Iceland (Sicre et al., 2008).As shown by numerous studies using a wide variety of methods, the MWP was a period of global warming. One example among many is the study of tree rings in China (Fig. 21.10; Liu et al., 2011).Figure 21.10. Temperature reconstruction from tree rings in China. (Red = warm, blue = cool.)Modified from Liu, Y., Cai, Q.F., Song, H.M., et al., 2011. Amplitudes, rates, periodicities and causes of temperature variations in the past 2485 years and future trends over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau. Chinese Science Bulletin 56, 2986–2994.Historical accounts confirm the worldwide occurrence of the MWP. It was a time of warm climate from about 900 AD to 1300 AD. Its effects were evident in Europe, where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled. The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize Greenland, and wine grapes were grown as far north as England, where growing grapes is now not feasible, and about 500 km north of present vineyards in France and Germany. Grapes are presently grown in Germany up to elevations of about 560 m, but from about 1100 AD to 1300 AD., vineyards extended up to 780 m, implying temperatures warmer by about 1.0–1.4°C. Wheat and oats were grown around Trondheim, Norway, suggesting climates about 1°C warmer than present (Fagan, 2000).Elsewhere in the world, prolonged droughts affected the southwestern United States and Alaska warmed. Sediments in central Japan record warmer temperatures. Sea surface temperatures in the Sargasso Sea were approximately 1°C warmer than today (Keigwin, 1996), and the climate in equatorial east Africa was drier from 1000 AD to 1270 AD. An ice core from the eastern Antarctic Peninsula shows warmer temperatures during this period.Oxygen isotope studies in Greenland, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Tibet, China, New Zealand, and elsewhere, plus tree-ring data from many sites around the world, all confirm the existence of a global MWP. Soon and Baliunas (2003) found that 92% of 112 studies showed physical evidence of the MWP, only 2 showed no evidence, and 21 of 22 studies in the Southern Hemisphere showed evidence of Medieval warming. Evidence of the MWP at specific sites is summarized in Fagan (2007) and Singer and Avery (2007).Evidence that the MWP was a global event is so widespread that one wonders why Mann et al. (1998) ignored it. Over a period of many decades, several thousand papers were published establishing the MWP from about 900 ADto 1300 AD. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when Mann et al. (1998), on the basis of a single tree-ring study, concluded that neither the MWP nor the Little Ice Age actually happened and that assertion became the official position of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC 3rd report (Climate Change, 2001) totally ignored the several 1000 publications detailing the global climate changes during the MWP and the LIA and used the Mann et al. single tree-ring study as the basis for the now-famous assertion that “Our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this. Today's climate pattern has existed throughout the entire history of human civilization” (Gore, 2007). This claim was used as the main evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 was causing global warming, and so, as revealed in the “Climategate” scandal, advocates of the CO2 warming theory were very concerned about the strength of data showing that the MWP was warmer than the 20th century and had occurred naturally, long before atmospheric CO2 began to increase. The Mann et al. “hockey stick” temperature curve was at so at odds with thousands of published papers, one can only wonder how a single tree-ring study could purport to prevail over such a huge amount of data.McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) and McKitrick and McIntyre (2005) evaluated the data in the Mann paper and concluded that the Mann curve was invalid “due to collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects”. Thus, the “hockey stick” concept of global climate change is now widely considered totally invalid and an embarrassment to the IPCC.”Medieval Warm PeriodHolocene Climate Variability*M. Maslin, ... V. Ettwein, in Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences (Second Edition), 2001Little Ice Age (LIA)The most recent Holocene cold event is the Little Ice Age (see Figures 2 and 3). This event really consists of two cold periods, the first of which followed the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) that ended ∼1000 years ago. This first cold period is often referred to as the Medieval Cold Period (MCP) or LIAb. The MCP played a role in extinguishing Norse colonies on Greenland and caused famine and mass migration in Europe. It started gradually before ad 1200 and ended at about ad 1650. This second cold period, may have been the most rapid and the largest change in the North Atlantic during the Holocene, as suggested from ice-core and deep-sea sediment records. The Little Ice Age events are characterized by a drop in temperature of 0.5–1°C in Greenland and a sea surface temperature falls of 4°C off the coast of west Africa and 2°C off the Bermuda Rise (see Figure 3).Download full-size imageFigure 3. Comparison of Greenland temperatures, the Bermuda Rise sea surface temperatures (SST) (Keigwin, 1996), and west African and a sea surface temperature (deMenocal et al., 2000) for the last 2500 years. LIALittle Ice Age; MWPMedieval Warm Period. Solid triangles indicate radiocarbon dates.D.J. Easterbrook, in Evidence-Based Climate Science (Second Edition), 20161 Solar Variation—Grand Minima“At the end of the Medieval Warm Period, ∼1300 AD, temperatures dropped dramatically and the cold period that followed is known as the Little Ice Age. The periods of colder climate that ensued for five centuries were devastating. The population of Europe had become dependent on cereal grains as a food supply during the Medieval Warm Period, and with the colder climate, early snows, violent storms, and recurrent flooding that swept Europe, massive crop failures occurred, resulting in widespread famine and disease (Fagan, 2000; Grove, 2004). Glaciers in Greenland and elsewhere began advancing and pack ice extended southward in the North Atlantic, blocking ports and affecting fishing. Three years of torrential rains that began in 1315 led to the Great Famine of 1315–1317.The Little Ice Age was not a time of continuous cold climate, but rather repeated periods of cooling and warming, each of which occurred during times of solar minima, characterized by low sunspot numbers, low total solar irradiance (TSI), decreased solar magnetism, increased cosmic ray intensity, and increased production of radiocarbon and beryllium in the upper atmosphere.Centuries of observations of the sun have shown that sunspots, solar irradiance, and solar magnetism vary over time, and these phenomena correlate very well with global climate changes on Earth. A number of solar Grand Minima, periods of reduced solar output, have been recognized (Fig. 14.1).Download full-size imageFigure 14.1. Solar minima.1.1 Wolf Minimum (1290–1320 AD)The Wolf Minimum was a period of low sunspot numbers (SSNs) and TSI between about 1300 and 1320 AD. It occurred during the cold period that marked the end of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA) about 1300 AD.The change from the warmth of the MWP to the cold of the LIA was abrupt and devastating, leading to the Great Famine from 1310 to 1322. The winter of 1309–1310 AD was exceptionally cold. The Thames River froze over and poor people were especially affected. The year 1315 AD was especially bad. Jean Desnouelles wrote at the time, “Exceedingly great rains descended from the heavens and they made huge and deep mud-pools on the land. Throughout nearly all of May, June, and August, the rains did not stop.” Corn, oats, and hay crops were beaten to the ground, August and September were cold, and floods swept away entire villages. Crop harvests in 1315 AD were a disaster, affecting an enormous area in northern Europe. In places, up to half of farmlands were eroded away, cold, wet weather prevented grain harvests, and fall plantings failed, triggering famines.In 1316 AD, spring rain continued, again impeding the sowing of grain crops, and harvests failed once again. Diseases increased, newborn and old people died of starvation, and multitudes scavenged anything edible. Whole communities disappeared and many farms were abandoned. The year 1316 was the worst for cereal crops in the entire Middle Ages. Cattle couldn’t be fed, hay wouldn’t dry and couldn’t be moved so it just rotted. Thousands of cattle froze during the bitterly cold winter of 1317–1318 and many others starved. The cold immobilized shipping. Rain in 1317–1318 continued through the summer and people suffered for another seven years. The coincidence of sudden cooling of the climate from the warm Medieval Warm Period to the harsh cold climate of the Little Ice Age during the Wolf Minimum was not just a coincidence, as shown by at least five later, similar instances.1.2 Sporer Minimum (1410–1540)The Sporer Minimum occurred from about 1410 to 1540 (Fig. 14.1). Like the Wolf Minimum, the Sporer coincided with a cold period (Fig. 14.2).Download full-size imageFigure 14.2. Relationship of solar minima, solar irradiance, and glacier advances. Blue areas were cool periods. Cool climates prevailed in all six solar minima since 1300 AD.1.3 Maunder MinimumThe Maunder Minimum is the most famous cold period of the Little Ice Age. Temperatures plummeted in Europe (Figs. 14.3–14.7), the growing season became shorter by more than a month, the number of snowy days increasedfrom a few to 20–30, the ground froze to several feet, alpine glaciers advanced all over the world, glaciers in the Swiss Alps encroached on farms and buried villages, tree-lines in the Alps dropped, sea ports were blocked by sea ice that surrounded Iceland and Holland for about 20 miles, wine grape harvests diminished, and cereal grain harvests failed, leading to mass famines (Fagan, 2007). The Thames River and canals and rivers of the Netherlands froze over during the winter (Fig. 14.3). The population of Iceland decreased by about half. In parts of China, warm-weather crops that had been grown for centuries were abandoned. In North America, early European settlers experienced exceptionally severe winters.Download full-size imageFigure 14.3. 1663 painting by Jan Grifier of the frozen Thames River in London during the Maunder Minimum.Download full-size imageFigure 14.4. Glaciers in the Alps advanced during the Little Ice Age.Download full-size imageFigure 14.5. Central England temperatures (CET) recorded continuously since 1658. Blue areas are reoccurring cool periods; red areas are warm periods. All times of solar minima were coincident with cool periods in central England.Download full-size imageFigure 14.6. CET during the Maunder Minimum.Download full-size imageFigure 14.7. Oxygen isotope record, GISP2 Greenland ice core showing the Maunder Minimum. Blue area is cool, red is warm. The isotope record shows the same cooling as the CET.”Medieval Warm Period