September 8, 2006

Climate Science on Trial

How a single scientific graph became the focus of the debate over global warming

By RICHARD MONASTERSKY

Can the U.S. Congress impeach a chart?

In one of the more unusual scenes of the 109th Congress, a House of Representatives subcommittee did just that.

For more than 10 hours spread out over two days, Rep. Edward Whitfield, a Republican from Kentucky, swore in a dozen witnesses to provide testimony about a squiggly two-dimensional figure. They delved into its past, looking at who had sired it and what company it had kept over the years in numerous scientific publications,