Mann then said (perhaps in reply to a query about bristlecones – my notes are unclear) that the western US was important to the EOF1; it was a “sweet spot”’? for estimating NH mean. No one on the panel asked for a further explanation of this. I checked this and was unable to confirm this claim; indeed, my calculations show the opposite. 5 of 6 EOF1 coefficients for the 6 gridcells from 112.5 to 122.5 W and 37.5-42.5N are less than the median (which includes the California bristlecone/foxtail sites) and the sixth is barely above the median. A “sweet sport”’? is at 7.5N; 52.5-67.5E. The lowish weights in this area are observable in the color-coded diagram in MBH98 itself.

There is also interesting cold spot at Western Greenland (Mann’s grid point 969, 72.5 N 27.5 W), a place that responds negatively to the warming trend (described by TPC1). Can’t find data for that grid point from HadCRUT3. I’d like to find recent data for that grid, as you note

Whether the EOFs are stationary is a big question.

(Of course, any nonstationarity is likely to be a response to some kind of recent anthropogenic forcing)

However, that they would note Steve works “in the oil industry” is no surprise. Late last year, they had an article on the religious supression of science, primarily targeted at the Bush administration. The editorial made a few great points then rambled into the GW/Kyoto affair. I’m not sure what the latter has to do with religion, but it was apparent there was an ideological axe to grind.

Mark

But despite all that, you have to give them this: they published something on it, which is more than most. Pity it’s full of mistakes.

From a National Geographic article:

“For their part, the original team that identified the bird as an ivory-bill dismisses the challenge to their finding in a response also published in tomorrow’s Science”

also

“But David Sibley says the burden of proof is on the Cornell-led team. It’s up to them, he says, to show that the species is not a pileated woodpecker. ”

Now if only Science and others would apply that standard to AGW!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0316_060316_woodpecker_2.html

Very briefly, there was a large (natural) leak of natural gas. The gas rose up until it reached equilibrium density with the atmosphere, then it was blown horizontally downwind—into a thunder storm. The storm’s electricity ignited the gas. The flame’s path followed the path of the gas: first horizontally, then vertically, to the source of the leak. Then BANG.

Kundt describes how this explanation fits virtually all details that are known about Tunguska. Yet not everyone has accepted the explanation, seemingly because it is not as exciting as most prior speculations.

Figure 2 in your writeup (page 10 in the PowerPoint presentation) is just devastating. If a result ain’t in the simplest analysis, it probably ain’t there at all.

This suggests another way to think about the MBH analysis. Perhaps all it is doing is forcing the reconstruction to have an upward slope in the 20th century.

When you fit the reconstruction to an upward trend in the 20th century, the reconstruction will have an upward trend in the 20th century — duh. The rest of the reconstruction is just garbage tacked on to the beginning of the 20th century trend, and your simple average plot explains why: in the aggregate, with nothing to force it one way or the other, the proxies are just noise.

Further, MBH probably get their alleged skill only because the proxies have enough persistence that when you pick proxies with a localized trend, they retain some of that trend in nearby windows, so your model appears to have some skill in predicting the nearby trend.

Amazing.