I suspect that we’re going to be hearing more discussion (post-Hansen) about warmest in 12,000 years (PAchauri in NAirobi) and so evidence from the tropics in the Holocene Optimum is going to be in play. This is rather an interesting proxy, especially when combined with peat moss from this period.

Ken, let me ask you: If Thompson had published a paper where they get the location of a sample wrong by a bit over a degree of longitude, and someone pointed that out, and there was a discussion similar to this one as to whether the location was wrong or the sample was actually taken from a differnt place – would that be noise?

I do not consider your longitude “find” to be noise — in fact you should be commended for your attention to detail. Steve M’s attention to detail got us to an identical sample ID for both finds at lakes with the same name and that appears to have answered the question you posed to a goodly but not complete finality. The mistake that you found in your referenced example would appear to confirm that peer reviewed literature in general is not infallible and I think that goes along with what many here have stated in the past. Of course, when one can get that mistake quickly corrected the discussion can continue in a timely manner — unlike the cases with Mann’s HS papers and some others who have published temperature reconstructions. (I found that the article in question refers to “Lago” in the caption to a paragraph and then immediately writes about “Laguna” in that paragraph. Evidently detective work is contagious.)

Some climate articles can be vague and incomplete in detail without showing any obvious mistakes and I think that is to what Steve M is referring in the Thompson article. Wegman made the same observation about Mann’s papers (besides pointing to his statistical mistakes).

It is when the discussion veers off into other issues that are not critical to the discussion or to drawing conclusions from the discussion that, in my mind, unnecessary levels of noise are created. Sometimes when this noise enters into a reply it can obscure a valid point being made that might be critical to the original discussion and I found that to be the case of my comprehension (could be my problem) of your original replies to Steve M on the Quelccaya terrain. I kept asking myself and looking for the point you were making that was critical to the discussion and waiting for you to put it into clear form.

Ken, let me ask you: If Thompson had published a paper where they get the location of a sample wrong by a bit over a degree of longitude, and someone pointed that out, and there was a discussion similar to this one as to whether the location was wrong or the sample was actually taken from a differnt place – would that be noise?

Actually, I rather suspect taht if this had been Thomspon, there would be a dozen or more posts consisting of nothing more than berating of Thompson, and it would be perfecly acceptable to this board.

So, both “lago” and “laguna” are redundant. It’s a bit like saying “Lake Alpaca Lake”. Abbott et al use both Lago and Laguna in the space of a few lines.

Steve, there is either a major error in location, and the sample number is correct, and its the same lake -

Or the location is correct and there is an error in the sample number, in which case its a different lake.

You forgot the bit about the “lakes” having the SAME NAME.

While your efforts to avoid the implication of censoring of opposing views should be commended, I am not a little distracted by the noise levels that I find come from (a) personal debates that frequently do not add to the knowledge base of the specific topic at hand, (b) posters who seem to come to the discussion with the intent of having their feelings hurt or to uncover evidence of a bias towards them and/or people with their points of view, (c ) posters who raise to the bait of these posters and thus contribute to wasted space (ad hominem ad infinitum), (d) posters who merely seem to want to let skeptics and agnostics know at every opportunity that the circumstantial case is closed on AGW and only fools would question what they surmise to be an overwhelming and proven consensus from the climate scientists, (e) those who make their personal cases against AGW with little or no evidence to back it up and (f) those who seem to want to show that they can turn your efforts as a critic of some sometimes sloppy and vague climate science publishing back on you.

How does one separate the noise in these discussions to obtain a more comprehensible thread on the subject at hand — or should that be the reader’s obligation? A recent example of a noise level that ended, I thought, constructively was the reaction of a poster to your criticisms of the NAS HS committee report for not presenting all the evidence (outside the realm of multi-proxy surface temperature reconstructions) for past climates being as warm as the last decade of the 20th century (which I very much suspected simply from their haste to show that natural temperatures fluctuations could not entirely explain the recent warming). You were more than willing to discuss your views on the Thompson paper not as an expert in the field but simply to show the lack of detail on Thompson’s part and to perhaps elicit more detailed information, but the poster appeared to me to be more intent on showing that your criticisms of NAS were unwarranted and then proceeded to pick at your analyses Thompson’s paper and the ice cap and glacier definition.

I must say that I learned from this exchange, but thought it to be rather inefficient because of what I judged to be the ulterior motives of the criticizing poster getting in the way of clearly explaining the effect his criticism would have on the any final conclusions drawn from the discussion.

I do see two separate directions from which the original threads tend to evolve: (1) the more technical discussion that usually starts the initial discussion and (2) the noise that evolves from the sources that I listed above but not limited to them. At what point the noise (to which I have contributed) of an individual post actually becomes an off topic subject would be a matter of someone’s subjective evaluation. I would hope that the noise level does not discourage potential contributors with information to add to the knowledge base, but if it was shown that it did would it be possible to at least allow the poster to determine whether they considered their postshould be categorized Off Topic of Subject X and posted under that category? I would also think that a post to be considered on topic should contain some discussion of an included link and not just a link or series of links by themselves.

As an AGW skeptic, I continue to look for probabilities of the evidence for and against, how much and, in general, clear arguments for and against. I think blogs like yours are good sources for this information and provide a means for point and counter point evidence that published papers do not provide. The personal touch in blogs is an added attraction, but there are times when I think some of the content needs to be compartmentalized.

Or the location is correct and there is an error in the sample number, in which case its a different lake.

Why dont you email the authors and find out?

I don’t know where you are from, but in the neck of the woods I grew up in you can camp at several places named “Mosquito Lake”. There is only one “Sam Mack Meadows”, though.