Comments on: Jacoby in Mongolia

By: Tingley and Huybers 2009 « Climate Audit

Tingley and Huybers 2009 « Climate Audit — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:38:47 +0000

[...] We’ve been following the history of the Mongolia series for some time (see CA post here which includes some very interesting comments by email from Gordon Jacoby. Tingley and Huybers say [...]

By: TCO

TCO — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:20:44 +0000

Pete:

I’ve been trying to avoid repeating the previously articulated criticisms. I just didn’t think it was fair to only say how they would gig Mann, once Steve piled on.

By: MrPete

MrPete — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:36:27 +0000

TCO #55, give Steve a break! [[[But they would also question the work practice and scientific ethics of your not publishing, of your unwillingness to come to grips on items one by one.]]]

OK, so he isn’t following your preferred road map. Perhaps it could even stretch as poor work practice to have scattered parallel focus rather sequential. But unethical? C’mon, such tantrums speak poorly of you and will do little to influence others.

Hire Steve a team of grad student assistants and you may help him publish more of what he’s learning. OTW, I think your “not enough publishing” rants are a waste of reader-space.

By: Tim Ball

Tim Ball — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:17:05 +0000

#46
Parker among others showed that precipitation for the months of October/November were the best predictors of growth for the following growing season.

By: TCO

TCO — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 16:09:25 +0000

Steve, you don’t need a graduate physics department to tell you that’s questionable. Good high school teacher is sufficient. But they would also question the work practice and scientific ethics of your not publishing, of your unwillingness to come to grips on items one by one.

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:38:02 +0000

To further confound things, in places where temperatures don’t vary much and rainfall is highly seasonal (Tropical Wet – Dry, Mediterranean, southern Marine West Coast, etc) the maximal growth may not be in the Spring and Early Summer the way it is in Humid Continental, Subarctic and various Mid Latitude climates. Which brings it back to (as jae will no doubt concur) the idea that tree rings may correlate more with moisture availability in many of the places where they have been sampled as proxies to “reconstruct paleo temperatures.”

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:12:56 +0000

#51. John A, they are well aware of this issue and most articles refer to summer reconstructions. You’re also mis-construing what I’m saying. I’m not taking issue with that point here.

By: David Stockwell

David Stockwell — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:36:37 +0000

Re. 40. Looking at the grid cell correlations gives me another idea. IF they were independent you could estimate easily the number of cells that should correlate with a random series purely by chance. You would expect a couple, much like the results above. If not random, you would expect more cells to correlate. Not sure how to handle the autlcorrelation though.

By: John A

John A — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:14:02 +0000

re #46

How can tree rings capture the six months per year that they are dormant? It’s impossible for tree rings to capture that information – so why are PhD scientists still making this fundamental empirical mistake? And why are you the only one appearing to question this?

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 13:58:15 +0000

What would your physics department think about using adjacent gridcells? Interesting physics no doubt.