By Tribune-Review

Published: Sunday, March 17, 2013, 9:00 p.m.
Updated: Sunday, March 17, 2013

Like “scientists” manipulating data to fit preordained conclusions, The New York Times and other mainstream media hyped a new study's climate-clucking claims while ignoring its methodology's fatal flaws.

“Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years” read The Times' headline. The Times asserted that the study “confirms” warming during “the past century, believed to be a consequence of human activity, exceeded any warming episode during (the last 1,500 years).”

Yet the study, published in Science, purports to reconstruct 11,300 years' worth of temperatures, based on mostly marine fossils from 73 sites — which raises huge red flags.

Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com tweeted: “A study based on ‘reconstructed data' from 73 data sites, pretended to cover space-time of 196 million sq. mi. and 11,300 yrs” — and added in a blog post that it says “fossilized ocean shells are thermometers. Right-o.”

The Global Warming Policy Foundation's David Whitehouse said the headline could have been “Earth cooler today than 28 percent of the past 11,300 years.”

And Western Washington University's Don J. Easterbrook noted the study omits raw data and relies on marine data that reflect ocean — not atmospheric — temperatures, putting it “totally at odds with ... Greenland ice-core data.”

If there's one valid conclusion here, it's that the media hype about this study is as worthless and misleading as the study itself.

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