Err... yes it does. Reading comprehension is not your forte, is it?
ETA In case you don't want to read around much, here are a few other articles linked from the first:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=8
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentid=3804&CFID=21084385&CFTOKEN=29888831
(See a familiar name there?)
What I don't see in your article is:
- The algorythm used to generate the graphic and why is not available
- Debunk of this claim :
"In Mann’s program, he applied a scaling, but with a difference. Rather than subtract the mean of the entire th series length, he subtracted the mean of the 20 century portion, then divided by the standard error of the th 11
20 century portion. Most of his proxy series do not look like hockey sticks, they look like flat static, and since they don’t change in the 20 century this procedure did not make much difference. The mean of the last section is roughly the same as the mean of the whole series (as is the standard error) so either way of standardizing yields more or less the same result. But some of the series trend upwards in the 20 century. For these, the Mann method has a huge effect. Since the mean of the 20 century portion is
higher than the mean of the whole series, subtracting the 20 century mean ‘de-centers’ the series, shifting it off a zero mean. This, in turn, inflates the variance of these series."
- and this :
"Of crucial importance here: the data for the bottom panel of Figure 6 is from a folder called CENSORED on Mann’s FTP site. He did this very experiment himself and discovered that the PCs lose their hockey stick shape when the Graybill-Idso series are removed. In so doing he discovered that the hockey stick is not a global pattern, it is driven by a flawed group of US proxies that experts do not consider valid as climate indicators. But he did not disclose this fatal weakness of his results, and it only came to light because of Stephen McIntyre’s laborious efforts. "
- Ponit 3.4 in the paper...that ponit is crucial to Mann's arguments.
"(i) MBH98 identified the hockey stick shape as the dominant pattern (PC1) in the proxy data by using
a flawed PC method. Under a corrected method the hockey stick shape is demoted to the fourth PC
and the analysis suggests it accounts for less than 8 percent of the total explained variance, making
it at best a small background signal. If the inclusion of a single higher-order PC accounting for less
than 8 percent of the variance in a single region changes all the results, it does not prove that the
PC4 is actually the “dominant climate pattern”, instead it shows that the model lacks robustness and
the conclusions are unstable. Had this been admitted in 1998 the paper would likely never have
been published.
(ii) If the flawed bristlecone pine series are removed, the hockey stick disappears regardless of how the
PCs are calculated and regardless of how many are included. The hockey stick shape is not global,
it is a local phenomenon associated with eccentric proxies. Mann discovered this long ago and
never reported it. "
and
"(iii) The MBH98 model fails to attain statistical significance regardless of the number of PCs used,
regardless of whether the bristlecone pines are included or not, and regardless of any other
salvaging strategy proposed by Mann and his colleagues in recent weeks. It is no more informative
about the early millennial climate than a table of random numbers.
(iv) MBH99 acknowledged that the bristlecone series are flawed and need an adjustment to remove the
CO2 fertilization effect. But they only applied the correction to the pre-1400 portion of the series.
When we apply the correction to the full series length the hockey stick shape disappears regardless
of how many PCs are retained. "
And last but not least
"Mann also objected that we did not exactly replicate his computational steps or sequence of proxy rosters.
No one had ever replicated his results, and we now know others had tried but were also unsuccessful. To
date we are the closest anyone has been able to come in print. We were not bothered by Mann’s response
on this point, but it did seem pointless to differ over trivial issues. So we requested his computational
code to eliminate these easily-resolved differences. To our surprise he refused to supply his computer
code, a stance he maintains to today. As for the proxy sequence, in building his PCs it turns out he had
spliced together a number of different series in order to handle segments with missing data in the earliest
part of the analysis. This was not explained in his Nature paper so Steve had not implemented it in the
emulation program. We requested identification of the splicing sequence, which Mann refused to provide,
so Steve worked out an emulation as best he could. In the end nothing turned on it, though Mann
continues to point to it as a knock against our efforts. It is still not possible to identify the final form of
the data used in MBH98 since it requires forming sequences of spliced proxy PC segments and Mann has
given conflicting counts of the number of underlying vectors involved. Still, Steve’s emulation program is
very close to reproducing the original hockey stick, and is as close as anyone is able to get in the absence
of cooperation from Mann and his colleagues"
