Maggie's Farm

Well, I disagree with Zoe's conclusion. The MBH98 paper, which is the core issue here, isn't just an innocent miscalculation or ego/reputation protector. The original graph was a deliberate decision to cherry pick one specific set of tree ring data (Yarmal tree ring data set) using only 12 of the tree ring cores instead of the complete set of 34. When the entire Yarmal data set is used the whole construct collapses. The scientist who built the Yarmal data set, Keith Biffa, refused to release the data set because he knew it was totally false and misrepresentative. It was as deliberate as it could have been to produce one specific result to fit one particular world view.

That's scientific fraud no matter how you want to slice and dice it.

This isn't the first time it's happened either. Gilbert Plass, a Canadian physicist, used earlier work of Svante Arrhenius and Thomas Chamberlain (1896 paper on the possible effects of unabsorbed CO2) with modern infrared spectroscopy techniques to measure atmospheric CO2 and postulate AGW. Charles Keeling came along used Plass's work in addition to ocean sediment cores and, whoopsie, found out that there have been 32 major warming/cooling cycles and, oddly, they have a strange correlation to solar cycles - both the mean cycles and the longer term 100 and 1,000 year cycles. But the AGW types still use Arrthenius/Chamberlain, Plass and Keeling as a basis for the current modern theories even though they've been somewhat suspect. Although that time is wasn't intentional.

With respect to aligators, I suspect it's more a case of population pressure than AGW as the American alligator now has a healthy population and very territorial. Stands to reason it's population is expanding back to it's pre-industrial range.