“Many commentators quoted one email referring to a "trick" used in Mann's graph to deal with the well-known tree ring divergence problem to "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These two phrases were taken out of context by climate change sceptics including Senator Jim Inhofe and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high.[36] In their inquiry into allegations of research misconduct, Penn State reviewers found "[t]he so-called 'trick' was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."[44] The Parliament of the United Kingdom select committee inquiry concluded that "[trick] appears to be a colloquialism for a "neat" method of handling data," and "[hide the decline] was a shorthand for the practice of discarding data known to be erroneous".[8]”