Did a Backpedaling Richard Muller Get a Phone Call from the Kochs?

"In the end, Mr. Muller's temperature analysis aligned with previously published studies suggesting that the world's average land temperature has increased by nearly 1 degree centigrade since the 1950s. Asked if the Koch Foundation could accept that conclusion, a spokeswoman, Tonya Mullins, said Mr. Muller's work still needed to pass muster in a peer-review process and noted that Mr. Muller made no determination about either ocean temperatures or the responsibility of fossil fuels.

In particular, Mr. Muller has made a point in interviews of emphasizing the lack of any definitive data showing that global land temperatures have increased at all in the last 13 years. "We cannot, in the last 13 years, tell from our data whether there is a slowdown or not," Mr. Muller told The Chronicle.

That kind of comment is 'just silly,' Mr. Mann said, since 1998 was known to be one of the warmest years on record because of an unusually strong El Niño, the cyclical pattern of Pacific Ocean warming. "That's not legitimate science," he said. 'No practicing climate scientist would take seriously the notion that you can measure global warming based on a 10-year trend, especially based on cherry-picking a warm starting year.'"

http://chronicle.com/article/Berkeley-Physicists-Climate/129748/?key=Sm4hI15jYHdMM30zZz1AbG4HPyQ9ZE91ZSRCOX0sblxXFQ%3D%3D

More evidence that science and business mix like...oil and water.