The Hockey Stick Controversy
In 2002, McIntyre became interested in climate science after a leaflet from the Canadian government warning of the dangers of global warming was delivered to his residence. McIntyre states that he noticed discrepancies in climate science papers that reminded him of the false prospectus that had duped investors involved in the Bre-X gold mining scandal.
Upon reading the IPCC Third Assessment Report, he noticed the prominent display of the hockey stick graph in the report and began studying Mann's research which had produced the graph. With Ross McKitrick, McIntyre co-authored two papers questioning the validity of the "hockey stick" graph first presented in a 1998 journal article by Michael E. Mann and co-authors. McIntyre has remarked on how his suspicions of this graph were aroused: "In financial circles, we talk about a hockey stick curve when some investor presents you with a nice, steep curve in the hope of palming something off on you."
McIntyre & McKittrick's papers were investigated by the US National Academy of Sciences, which issued a report in 2006 that affirmed the hockey stick graph while acknowledging statistical shortcomings of the original Mann et al. analysis. A 2006 report to Congress by a team of statisticians led by Edward Wegman found the criticisms of the hockey stick graph by McIntyre and McKitrick to be "valid and compelling."
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