Michael Mann

Michael Mann is an American climatologist whose late-1990s research showing a "hockey stick"-shaped temperature increase over time became an iconic graph showing global warming and thereby became the target of global warming deniers. His research had some statistical flaws but reanalysis continued to show the "hockey stick" shape; as has subsequent research.

Background
Mann has an A.B. in applied mathematics and physics from the University of California, Berkeley (1989), and from Yale University an MS in physics (1991), an MPhil in physics the same year, an MPhil in geology and geophysics in 1993, and a PhD in geology and geophysics in 1998.

From 1999 to 2005 Mann taught at the University of Virginia Department of Environmental Sciences. He then moved to Penn State University. In 2009 Mann was promoted to professor at Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Meteorology and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and since 2005 has been director of the university's interdepartmental Earth System Science Center.

Research
Mann is the lead author or co-author of over 90 scientific publications, the majority of which have appeared in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals. He was a lead author on the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001).

Affiliations
Mann is director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He has been organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences 'Frontiers of Science' and has served as a committee member or advisor for other National Academy of Sciences panels. He served as editor for the Journal of Climate and has been a member of numerous international and U.S. scientific advisory panels and steering groups.

Mann is also one of the climate scientists blogging at RealClimate.org.

Investigations, exonerations, and ongoing legal harassment
Subsequent to the November 2009 theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in England, and in response to demands for an inquiry, Mann was investigated and exonerated, by Pennsylvania State University, his employer. . The National Science Foundation Inspector General's office did a followup review and investigation, and in August 2011 they likewise exonerated him.

Through 2011, Mann has been subjected to lawsuits by AGW delayers Ken Cuccinelli (Virginia's Attorney General) and the American Tradition Institute, seeking to review thousands of pages of his email correspondence from his time at the University of Virginia. About 12,000 emails are being requested under the Virginia state Freedom of Information Act laws. “The issue isn’t FOIA,” Mann told the Washington Post. “It’s a partisan witch hunt.” A fund has been set up to assist with his legal expenses.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Ken Cuccinelli
 * American Tradition Institute
 * CRU email theft

External resources

 * RealClimate climate science blog by climate scientists