Does the ‘Mike’s trick’ email from the ‘climategate’ controversy show that scientists were falsifying climate change data?

Climate change deniers used out-of-context quotes from stolen emails to incorrectly allege a “climategate” conspiracy that scientists were falsifying temperature data.

In one case, a scientist is misrepresented as saying that he “completed Mike’s nature trick” to “hide the decline.” These two phrases were dishonestly edited together from different parts of a sentence to fabricate suspicion. In reality, the original quote referred to two separate and legitimate practices. Mike’s trick is not a deception, but a trick of the trade. The “trick” involves plotting direct thermometer measurements in the same graph as proxy data from the past to show modern climate change in a long-term context. 

“Hide the decline” refers not to a real temperature decline, but a decline in the reliability of some tree rings after 1960 as a temperature proxy.

Nine separate investigations exonerated the climate scientists.