Global Warming and the Data Quality Act

Andre

The reason why this thread is here instead of the Earth science files, will be clear in the last sentence

In the spring of this year I received a discussion-group E-mail with an early draft of this paper:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0606291103v1.pdf

Emphasis mine.

As a reaction I replied to the (intermediate) sender with this E-mail which was also cc-ed to everybody involved in the paper, including the authors.

There is an issue with the quality of the scientific procedures in that publication challenged here:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=833
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=834
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=837

and here:
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/foru...osts=2&start=1
Showing that the error margin of the critical proxies is way too large to use it as fundament for far fetching conclusions.

But there is also an issue with the basic procedures in the scientific method. If one particular proxy is suggesting a conclusion with global implications then the researches are obliged to test that with available data and literature, from my E-mail it is clear that they refrained from doing so. Yet all authors are specialists and very aware of the extensive literature on the Holocene maximum. It is also clear that nothing in the study warrants the conclusions as emphasized in the abstract here. Therefore we are forced to conclude that these statements are unfounded but nevertheless have a definite potential for hype building:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i40/...atechange.html
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/st...566610828.html
http://www.fdlreporter.com/apps/pbcs...609270509/1985
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/s...28warming.html
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/...5global001.cfm

etc etc, (Google news “global warming 12000”)
All those statements suggesting “Global warming at 12,000- year high” are proven to be false to begin with, initiated by a rambling study. But those unfounded opinions of the authors have a strong influence in the shaping of the opinion of the people (demagoguery).

In the USA there is a Data Quality Act. Are there any USA citizens here willing and able to help me exposing the spin legally using that act?

Andre

I do understand that the Data Quality Act does not apply to "scientific" publications, but what if the Director of GISS/NASA held a press conference, or was interviewed when wrongly stating officially that "the planet as a whole, is approximately as warm now as at the Holocene maximum"?