# Michael Mann Michael Mann is an American climatologist whose 1998–99 reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past millennium — the "hockey stick" graph, flat for centuries then bending sharply upward in the industrial era — made him simultaneously one of the most cited and one of the most attacked scientists of his generation. The graph's power lay in its legibility: it showed at a glance that recent warming was anomalous against a long natural baseline, the kind of evidence detailed on Paleoclimatology and Ice Cores. ## The Hockey Stick and Its Afterlife Featured prominently in the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report, the hockey stick became a lightning rod precisely because it was so communicable. Critics, several funded through the [[Koch Network]] and allied channels, attacked its statistical methods. The reconstruction was subsequently vindicated: a 2006 National Research Council review affirmed its central conclusion, and more than two dozen later studies using independent data and methods reproduced the basic shape. The scientific question was settled in Mann's favor, but the political attack had a longer half-life than the scientific rebuttal — a recurring pattern in [[Climate Change Denialism]]. ## A Target of the Denial Machine Mann became the personal focus of the denial movement to a degree few scientists experience. He was a central figure in the manufactured 2009 "Climategate" controversy, in which stolen emails were quote-mined to allege fraud; multiple investigations cleared him. The attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, pursued his records in a fishing expedition that universities and courts ultimately rejected. Mann sued commentators who accused him of fraud and, after years of litigation, won a defamation verdict in 2024. He has since become an outspoken public defender of climate science, arguing that scientists must engage directly in the public fight rather than retreat to the lab — a stance that, like [[James Hansen]]'s activism, draws both admiration and criticism. His experience is a case study, alongside the work of [[Naomi Oreskes]], in how organized doubt targets individuals to chill the broader field. ## Connections Mann is a leading paleoclimatologist whose work anchors Paleoclimatology and Ice Cores and [[The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change]], and whose persecution illustrates [[Climate Change Denialism]] in action. For the field overview, see [[Climate Science]].