Well as far as "If politics were playing a role, so would money, and it is working in the opposite manner to what you suggest. " I'd have to speculate whether keeping your job and to being able to retire would fall under the category of a money incentive. If Hansen hadn't had the clout that he does, he might have been history from NASA.

I'd also have to disagree with this: "I don't think there is any attempt to gang together and say that it is all due to multi-decadal signals."

What about the NOAA statement that had to be retracted later (see the editor's note at the bottom), discussed in this article. Remember, the one that claimed that there was a concensus among NOAA scientists that there was no connection between global warming and hurricanes:

There is consensus among NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters that recent increases in hurricane activity are primarily the result of natural fluctuations in the tropical climate system known as the tropical multi-decadal signal.

Oh, look, there's that same phrase, the multi-decadal signal. Why does NOAA's 2006 hurricane forecast spend almost as much time trying to sell this concept as it does on the forecast? It's an excellent forecast on its own, and stands alone without the AMO hard sell. It's an unprofessional thing to do. The hurricane forecast should simply be a forecast, and doesn't need to advertise an unproven point of view that happens to coincide with the leanings of the political party currently in office.

It's not very objective and it's not good science.

As far as the "other side" -- look who the coauthor of the June 13 paper is -- Mann. That would be this same M. E. Mann: "we believe more firmly than before that this is real," says Mann of the AMO. And if you look at the references to their papers, which are peer-reviewed, they do reference work from both sides.

It's sad that the skimpy resources available at NOAA are being scrambled to put together a series of quick-and-dirty refutations of the growing body of work done by respected climate scientists, and projects like the hurricane reanalysis, instead of being utilized for hurricane research that will improve forecasting.