Comments on: Tornetrask Regressions

By: Mats Holmstrom

Mats Holmstrom — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 03:17:25 +0000

It is interesting to note that the pine trees studied in the McCarroll paper is probably very similar to Briffa’s Tornetrask pines. These regions of northern Sweden and Finland are quite similar.

The connection between tree growth and sunshine is interesting, especially since it seems that the solar radiation at Earth’s surface varies quite a lot (R.T. Pinker et al., Science, 308, p850, 2005). In that paper they state that At high latitudes, plant growth is light-limited, and a decrease in solar radiation can affect net primary productivity. Consistent with high latitude tree growth being a proxy for sunshine.

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 22:57:33 +0000

Trees don’t talk less clearly now than in the past…people were just reading too simple of a story into the record and are now starting to get whipped closer to truth.

By: Chas

Chas — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 20:09:07 +0000

By 2004 no justification for such corrections has materialised, as Briffa, Jones, Osborne and Schweingruber comment:
“At present, no satisfactory explanation of the relative MXD decline has been identified”

Yet they use it:

” we make the untested assumption that the decline is due to an anthropogenic factor that did not occur earlier in the reconstruction period.”

But they concede
” further work must dictate whether this assumption will be supported or rejected.”

” uncertainty must surely be associated with the reconstructions because of this assumption, particularly for earlier warm periods.”

By: Chas

Chas — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:41:27 +0000

Woops lots of typos in #4
The correct link is:
http://academic.engr.arizona.edu:80/HWR/Brooks/GC572-2004/readings/vaganov-nature-siberia-tree-snow.pdf
I hope!

By: Chas

Chas — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 09:51:29 +0000

Its intersting to see that in 1999 the reasons for the “reduced sensitivity” were “unknown”:

http//:academic.engr.arizona.edu/HWR/Brooks/ GC572-2004/readings/vaganov-nature-siberia-tree-snow.pdf
So the last 100 years precipitations are unique!
It must frightening to notice that the trees are lining up with the meteosondes
and the satellites against the contaminated thermometer record (LOTR?);-)

By: Chas

Chas — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:42:53 +0000

Briffa’s “Trees tell of past climates: but are they spreaking less clearly today” contains a quite enjoyable discussion of ‘correction’ issues:
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/link.asp?id=43xa8lk6pcmvmh9h

BTW would it be possible to have a ‘library page’ on the site?

By: Michael Ballantine

Michael Ballantine — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:19:36 +0000

Ed, I guess we can say that the only thing the trees can say unambiguously is whether conditions were favourable or unfavourable for growth.

By: Ed Snack

Ed Snack — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 02:07:43 +0000

It’s all gone so quiet ! Frankly this post doesn’t need much comment, I mean what else is there to say really. Tornetrask and the Bristlecones, the Tasmanian Huorn Pines, what is left of the dendrochronological record that one can rely on as used by the AGW crowd.