He didn’t test the effect of the goof on MBH itself or on systems with lousy proxies where you introduce a few nonclimatic “proxies” [bristlecones]. To me, this seems like the old joke about the economist on the desert island: assume we have a can-opener. If you assume that the proxies are all really good and that there are no bad proxies, then the erroneous method wouldn’t matter.

He doesn’t deal with RE and R2 or report them. I asked for these stats but got nowhere with GRL – there’s a new editor-in-chief, who was quoted in ES&T as saying that he was personally involved in the editing. My guess is that von Storch has both high R2 and RE in his simulations, which is obviously different than the spurious MBH situation.

There was nothing in his reponse that bothered me in terms of demonstrating that there was anything wrong with our position (and I try to be coldly objective about this.) However, I’m sure that partisans will seize on his comment. I don’t get the sense that climate scientists have the faintest interest in actually understanding the problems with MBH; they just want to get off the hook. Von Storch will give them some ammunition, although it’s completely off point.

The point is thus?

D