"graham, for one who wishes to promote scientific literacy, you seem to understand very little of the scientific method, the scientific community, or how either works. it's almost as if you were an amateur ..."

No no no! I claim that title proudly! ;-) I'm not a scientist at all, and am definitely a lay reader in all this.

The thing that really bugs me is when non-climatologists assert climate change is still an open debate when all they've got is 'some blog I read'. Then they start misquoting reports as proving a MWP as warmer than today, when the actual report proves the EXACT OPPOSITE.

So Graham,
any other peer reviewed reports that confirm a MWP warmer than today? ;-)

You either intentionally misquoted the report above, or didn't bother reading it and just linked to it because a denialist blog somewhere linked to it. If it's the later, can you see why us lay people that are watching this issue prefer to go with known, peer-reviewed names in the business that are doing real science rather than the lying, backstabbing, deceitful and disguising Denialist blogs that are largely sponsored by fossil fuel companies?

Eclipse Now, basic rule of analysis - the data has primacy, not what the researcher says about the data. The graph shows the MWP as warmer than where it ends. Furthermore, if you actually look at the paper, link above courtesy of MA, you'll see that it compares its results with the Hockey Stick, as well as criticising the methodology of the Hockey Stick. You'll see that the Hockey Stick misses most of the MWP as well as the Little Ice Age. As you should appreciate the graph is not "art" but a graphical representation of real figures - i.e. maths.

And if you correctly read the quote you are relying on it doesn't say that the MWP was colder than now, just not warmer. I have never said it was warmer, just that it existed, that is another issue again.

In response to Bush Basher I should point out that the Wegman Committee was appointed by the US Congress and was a review of the Mann et al paper. It was in effect peer review, not a paper in its own right. Except that Wegman is a real statistician, whereas Mann et all aren't, yet the Hockey Stick is actually a statistical artifact. So Mann failed peer review, except that of his friends in the climate science community.

BTW, Eclipse, checked your site out. Appears you are in the pay of the green activists, so I wouldn't go accusing people on the other side of the debate as having vested interests while you don't! People in Greenhouses, as they say...

Still waiting responses to all the other information I provided in my last posts.

Oh how I wish I were funded by some greenie agency, as our graphic design business has been hit by the GFC. But the REAL funding that distorts the science has always come from big oil.

"The funding of an array of think tanks and institutes that house climate sceptics and deniers also worried Britain's premier scientific body, the Royal Society. It found that in 2005 Exxon distributed nearly $3 million to 39 groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change". It asked Exxon to stop the funding and its protests helped force Exxon's recent retreat."

http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/who-is-behind-climate-change-deniers-20080802-3ou6.html?page=-1

GrahamY: "And if you correctly read the quote you are relying on it doesn't say that the MWP was colder than now, just not warmer. I have never said it was warmer, just that it existed, that is another issue again."

That's the heart of it isn't it? Because today's temperatures are not the REAL issue, as serious as they are, it's tomorrow's temperatures and preventing 2 degrees increase which will trigger all those nasty tipping points we fear.

The current temperature effects are bad enough as shown by the coming ice-free Arctic in summer months, *ancient* glaciers withdrawing, etc. But tomorrow's temperatures? That's the real worry.

But just in case other readers have just stumbled across this thread, we are discussing your interpretation of this paper which ends:

"We find no evidence for any earlier periods in the last two millennia with warmer conditions than the post-1990 period — in agreement with previous similar studies"."
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/MobergEtAl2005.pdf

So MWP? Not so much. Again I need to ask why you even raised it, and what you *think* it proves?

Jeez Explodes Now, stop with all the dodging and sactimonious preaching - just answer the man's questions!

Number 1 being - Can you bring yourself to admit there was a MWP?

Well was there or wasn't there - not whether it was warmer or cooler than it is now - did it exist?

Stop squirming and trying to attack on other levels and grounds, stick to the point, don't lose your temper again (and again) and if you are wrong be big enough to admit it.

That's the heart it - you just can't admit you are wrong.

What is it with eco fascists that they not only cannot face reality but feel they have to blather on about the future that evidently only they are privy to, another Nostrodamus no doubt? (This is rhetorical and requires no answer.)

Nice character attack there ODO, and not one of my questions about the MWP was answered. But for your information, if you really want to know what I think about the MWP, have you even read the last few pages of interaction? It's all there if you bother to read it.

You want the world to be YES or NO but it isn't that simple. I'll try and break it down for you. From my layman's reading of what the real scientists are saying...

YES there was a small MWP, but NO I don't think it was warmer than now.

YES parts of Europe were *comparatively* warmer than 'usual' during the hockey-stick period, but NO, this does not apply to the whole world as the globe was actually COOLER back then! So the Hockey Stick remains. Real climatologists are saying the MWP was either a LOCAL event, or not significant enough to cancel out the overall message of the hockey stick.

And most of all, NO I'm NOT falling for some silly strawman that implies that climate cannot EVER change without human activity. Of course it can, and has, and does, when the other natural forcings are acting upon climate.

It's just that anthropogenic climate forcings are much stronger (this time).

When he's attacking others Eclipse demands peer-reviewed evidence, but just airily refers to "real scientists" when launching his "rebuttals". I asked for comment on a couple of peer-reviewed studies from the southern hemisphere which show the MWP. No response. Just assertions. Still waiting.

I've tried to stay clear of EN's literary approach to the Moberg study because that's not how you do science. But if EN insists on the literary approach rather than the mathematical one, then I'll take him to task for taking his quotes out of context.

Moberg also says:"Our reconstruction shows larger multicentennial variability than most previous multi-proxy reconstructions1–4,7, but agrees well with temperatures reconstructed from borehole measurements12 and with temperatures obtained with a general circulation model13,14."

So they disagree substantially with the Hockey Stick

"This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue."

This can be summarised as "Don't put all your money on CO2."

On another note I've just noticed that Protagoras has defamed Fred Singer in a post above. He has never been a tobacco lobbyist. In the interests of free speech I am going to leave her quote there - many make this claim so it is good to have it out in the open. But I am going to ask her for an apology, and if no apology is forthcoming I will take disciplinary action. OLO does not exist as a high profile platform from which you can make defamatory claims against those you disagree with.