claim: Mike's Nature trick has nothing to do with hide the decline, instead refering to a technique by Michael Mann to plot instrumental temperature along with past reconstructions.
evidence: As part of his Phd research, Michael E. Mann worked with seismologist Jeffrey Park on developing statistical techniques for find long term oscillations of natural variability in the instrumental temperature record of global surface temperatures over the last 140 years; Mann & Park 1993 showed patterns relating to the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, and Mann & Park 1994 found what was later termed the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation.