text: What follows is a sordid tale of a graph that overthrew decades of work, conveniently fitted the climate models, and was lauded triumphantly in glossy publication after publication. But then it was crushed when an unpaid analyst stripped it bare. It had been published in the highest most prestigious journal, Nature , but no one had checked it before or after it was spread far and wide. Not Nature , not the IPCC, not any other climate researcher.