Changes

While dramatic, the graph encountered serious questions from the beginning.  It failed to reproduce two Northern Hemisphere climate episodes that were well documented in the literature, the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age (it should be noted that these were not global phenomenons, but were limited to Europe and Greenland; the Mann diagram concerned global average temperatures).  Concerned about these discrepancies, [[Stephen McIntyre]] and [[Canada|Canadian]] economist Ross McKitrick attempted to reproduce the result and discovered a serious flaw in the statistical methods used to construct the hockey stick graph.  Because of this, the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC included several different temperature reconstruction methods instead of favoring just one hypothesis.

While dramatic, the graph encountered serious questions from the beginning.  It failed to reproduce two Northern Hemisphere climate episodes that were well documented in the literature, the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age (it should be noted that these were not global phenomenons, but were limited to Europe and Greenland; the Mann diagram concerned global average temperatures).  Concerned about these discrepancies, [[Stephen McIntyre]] and [[Canada|Canadian]] economist Ross McKitrick attempted to reproduce the result and discovered a serious flaw in the statistical methods used to construct the hockey stick graph.  Because of this, the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC included several different temperature reconstruction methods instead of favoring just one hypothesis.

==Natural variability of the climate system==

==Natural Variability of the Climate System==

Evolutionary scientists who believe in global warming think that the Earth has experienced numerous [[Ice Age|ice age]]s over two million years, during which global temperatures dropped approximately 11° F and then returned to normal. The frigid temperatures allowed ice sheets to expand southward, covering much of [[Asia]], [[Europe]], and [[North America]]. The cooling associated with ice ages is gradual, while the terminations are relatively rapid. However, even the rapid terminations of ice ages take centuries to millennia.

Evolutionary scientists who believe in global warming think that the Earth has experienced numerous [[Ice Age|ice age]]s over two million years, during which global temperatures dropped approximately 11° F and then returned to normal. The frigid temperatures allowed ice sheets to expand southward, covering much of [[Asia]], [[Europe]], and [[North America]]. The cooling associated with ice ages is gradual, while the terminations are relatively rapid. However, even the rapid terminations of ice ages take centuries to millennia.