I’m working this with Tornetrask analysis into an article on the impact on Jones et al [1998]. One of the defects of terse journal arguments is that you don’t get to show the number of plots that are sometimes necessary to illustrate what’s on your mind. Websites definitely help in this respsect.

Steve, I think your publishing strategy needs work. You’ve been working on this stuff as long as and as much as a grad student for his Ph.D. You should have a wealth of publications of different level of abstraction (some small points, some more review). some addressing MBH, some general method notes, some new things you’ve found in the data that aren’t even related to GW debate.)

You should publish this as a small note. And it’s not such a big deal about the usage of this in reconstructions other than that is why it makes it mildly worth while to do the work. But the main point should be around your examination of this study itself. Don’t let the battle with the forest prevent you from killing a tree.

I’m serious. This should be published yesterday. and if they don’t want a note in the original journal of Polar Urals, publish it in Tree Ring Surveys (or whereever).

also, this is more strategy: be very clear about what claims you make and differentiate them for speculation as to implications. And follow the Notice to Authors and proofread like a martinet. I’ve gotten way faster publication by doing this.

It could even match a core with a NA data gap the wrong size.
You’d get two reduced spikes with a gap between them the size of the error in years. It would tell you what was going on.

Do cores like the above end up lighting barbecues with the data going into the bit bucket? Do these sorts of errors get massaged out of the data before use? Is it thought they aren’t significant?

So if a core doesn’t quite fit, and you just toss that data away, don’t you loose the ability to determine your confidence in the result? Doesn’t the process of selecting cores for a chronology do just this?

Sorry in advance if I’m asking silly questions.

Steve, I think you are doing great work. Thanks for taking the time to repeat in #14.

Thanks for the reply. I was just kind of thinking out loud in comment #13 on what effects might occur. One of the problems with this kind of thing is that it introduces masses of permutations, which means the demands on statistical significance become so stringent any real signal is likely to get thrown out by the noise.

Interesting thought about 17th century – I assume that it should be possible to create (as Steve puts it) a kind of “master record” and test one core against the whole record. The danger of this kind of thing is that if an erroneous set is entered into the “master record”, you really run into trouble! On the flip side, through integrating multiple cores into the record, it should be possible to improve the signal to noise ratio.

As mentioned earlier, I’m don’t know much about dendrochronology, so I’m likely to make schoolboy mistakes when discussing it!

Another question. Could a core that tapes two parts of the chronology together with a mid section not overlapping those two parts contain a two ring for one year defect and cause some other good cores not to match in that part of the chronology?

As far as how frequent? Great question. Some one should write a paper.
If you don’t know, can you not deal with it?

Are the methods used robust when faced with a core with two tree rings in a year? Easy to try out I’d think.

I’ve put this dataset (and all tree ring datasets into R tables arranged in 4 columns ID, year, age, RW (or MXD). So if anyone wants R versions, I can send. Steve

This could be further boosted if the ring widths have any kind of shaping to the noise envelope (which one would expect if they are temperature-sensitive).

This assumes the false ring is central. If it is not central, then obviously the result would be clearer, as you postulate John. If there are multiple false rings, then Steve’s method becomes less accurate. Not sure how you would accommodate this though, but not knowing a great deal about dendrochronology, I’m not sure how frequent such events are.

I imagine a sample with a false ring would defeat the method you use unless the false ring is quite close to one of the ends of the core. One way to overcome this would be to ripple an NA for two consecutive data points through the set. If you are lucky you will only have to run half the resulting data sets before you get a match. No you don’t have to thank me for this grand idea. I’ll create the datasets if you’ll point me to the required format. I could then zip them up and attach them if you’ll give me an email address.

Some shell scripts
grep 862450 russ021w.rwl | awk ‘{ print $12, $11, $10, $9, $8, $7, $6, $5, $4, $3 }’ | backwards > russ021w.jgb
grep 862460 russ021w.rwl | awk ‘{ print $12, $11, $10, $9, $8, $7, $6, $5, $4, $3 }’ | backwards >> russ021w.jgb
grep 862470 russ021w.rwl | awk ‘{ print $12, $11, $10, $9, $8, $7, $6, $5, $4, $3 }’ | backwards >> russ021w.jgb

The backwards script out of K&R’s UPE:
#/bin/bash
# backwards: print the input in backward line order
awk ‘ { line[NR] = $0 }
END { for (i=NR; i > 0; i– ) print line[i] } ‘ $*

The same for the MXDs using russ021x.rwl
———————–8<———————-
862 1 Polar-Ural (historisch) WIDTH_RING LASI -
862 2 Russia Siberian larch -
862 3 FRITZ SCHWEINGRUBER – flipped by jgb

862450 79 63 26 18 7 12 26 53 12 45
862450 60 45 -999 77 86 38 19 21 13 30
862450 19 25 26 29 22 14 21 46 17 18
862450 17 21 23 30 27 47 44 30 27 28
862450 22 33 22 57 25 65 35 21 22 30
862450 40 9 37 8 12 16 20 23 12 18
862450 17 28 7 29 19 20 29 17 52 20
862450 52 30 22 48 60 61 55 61 47 27
862450 47 31 34 26 49 30 68 83 54 83
862450 127 96 70 83 103 102 63 62 40 70
862450 89 92 67 102 76 18 42 36 44 88
862450 132 47 31 69 93 64 37 32 77 50
862450 48 67 46 44 44 100 50 74 41 84
862450 69 50 50 19 63 165 89 55 44 10
862450 112 121 59 39 24 14 25 45 31 20
862450 16 23 17 76 30 22 24 34 14 18
862450 26 21 53 65 108 174 33 99 102 102
862450 105 108 132 174 19 39 42 182 141 135
862450 70 100 119 78 143 244 183 128 114 79
862450 58 172 69 118 167 128 147 101 59 102
862450 73 44 142 99 86 47 99 86 75 13
862450 14 42 63 59 32 168 62 999

862460 29 16 26 7 17 12 50 47 52 77
862460 36 54 51 26 45 49 9 57 43 21
862460 31 30 23 34 28 15 38 32 38 54
862460 31 17 12 25 36 29 37 42 42 80
862460 51 31 57 17 73 126 128 64 49 36
862460 53 16 55 48 90 67 53 34 25 9
862460 -999 23 24 25 18 16 16 21 14 24
862460 33 44 999

862470 48 87 79 72 109 85 82 43 55 51
862470 81 176 40 114 106 70 57 138 112 59
862470 101 73 18 36 45 46 62 37 10 14
862470 92 58 79 84 55 98 45 67 45 111
862470 94 91 73 34 82 47 74 124 91 79
862470 33 43 15 51 51 54 47 51 65 110
862470 86 46 45 31 64 44 18 17 21 16
862470 13 28 40 18 24 18 19 16 14 18
862470 19 17 14 40 27 34 24 22 31 999
———————–8<———————-
862 1 Polar-Ural (historisch) DENSITY_MAXIMUM LASI -
862 2 Russia Siberian larch -
862 3 FRITZ SCHWEINGRUBER – flipped by JGB

862450 50 41 61 46 37 40 49 69 60 85
862450 72 71 -999 77 74 85 60 79 55 68
862450 58 56 75 75 72 66 66 99 72 63
862450 57 64 89 93 82 86 88 76 78 67
862450 75 84 69 93 80 77 86 69 79 83
862450 81 62 82 56 59 64 70 73 58 67
862450 49 73 70 70 73 63 55 58 81 73
862450 78 70 72 84 85 74 77 84 78 56
862450 70 58 74 68 60 84 75 88 65 70
862450 78 73 81 65 75 70 81 94 45 83
862450 83 67 86 67 66 63 78 63 70 82
862450 80 78 77 74 83 64 81 62 61 73
862450 68 85 73 58 75 70 54 58 70 83
862450 59 76 68 73 71 83 76 73 73 53
862450 85 68 68 75 77 54 60 78 80 63
862450 76 61 71 72 55 83 75 64 51 62
862450 61 62 79 50 67 72 76 73 87 69
862450 75 77 62 68 79 69 80 88 74 79
862450 77 87 76 64 76 79 79 77 74 79
862450 77 70 78 78 80 75 71 68 80 80
862450 74 77 92 70 77 71 73 86 80 68
862450 81 76 66 61 64 72 64 999

862460 56 55 58 42 47 48 64 60 69 66
862460 71 61 76 74 76 75 45 77 69 60
862460 80 68 61 69 79 69 74 78 67 81
862460 82 64 74 79 72 64 78 69 74 84
862460 76 80 80 68 77 81 74 83 85 77
862460 85 73 69 81 84 75 80 79 85 64
862460 -999 70 80 81 83 84 82 79 64 78
862460 71 82 999

862470 81 86 77 90 91 66 79 61 60 84
862470 70 81 50 68 73 73 87 74 78 77
862470 94 89 29 75 84 58 87 86 63 70
862470 82 59 61 75 88 64 73 78 70 76
862470 58 66 75 68 77 60 74 67 77 62
862470 58 56 68 80 60 67 65 83 71 78
862470 72 72 72 74 87 70 67 74 79 55
862470 60 76 77 62 78 53 76 75 46 77
862470 69 56 47 67 50 67 48 52 53 999
———————–8<———————-

Hope I got it right. What format would be right?