You really need to look up what words mean.
Saying that something is plausible, is only one step removed from saying that it is unlikely. It is the lowest possible form of agreement.

They try to soften the blow by saying Mann’s conclusions are “plausible” which some people, who have not looked the word up, think is a point in Mann’s favor. It is not. In most dictionaries an element of deception is implied.

Word parsing at its finest. I’m sure the NAS were going for the rarely used “deceptive” definition. Bravo.

Let’s agree there are very few idiots in science; I met a doctoral student in molecular biology when I was at U of Calif. who was actually surprised to learn there are microscopic organisms in the Pacific Ocean.

But if what you say is true, why is it that some paleoclimatologists seem to be pushing the use of certain BCP as global temp proxies when it has been reported that the ‘blade’ uptick in late 20th cent growth is not reflected in the local instrumental record ? Are you saying they are idiots or not scientists ?

“We … wish to inform your readers that late-20th century warming is unprecedented not only in the past six centuries (as shown by Mann and colleagues in 1998), but at least the past two millennia (see attached graph, which we request that you publish) [Graph reprinted from Mann et al, 2003,"On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late 20th Century Warmth", "Eos", 84:256-258].

“… Unfortunately, the data on which the McIntyre & McKitrick analysis was based, which was forwarded to them by a colleague of Mann’s at the request of McIntyre & McKitrick, was inadvertently scrambled during tabulating for transmission to them, rendering the data for earlier centuries useless. Had McIntyre and McKitrick directly downloaded the data from the publicly available website which they were encouraged to do by Mann’s team this would not have occurred,

McIntyre & McKitrick then applied a flawed methodology to the scrambled data, and reached mistaken conclusions wildly at odds with many peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Had the researchers themselves been experts, had they sought comments in advance from experts in the field (including Dr. Mann), had they submitted their paper to a reputable scientific journal all of which are standard procedures in scientific publication, the flaws would have been discovered. Instead, the authors, who are not scientists – one is a mining executive, the other an economist – published their article in a social science magazine that does not apply widely accepted standards of review by scientific experts…”

There are no idiots in science. They get weeded out early on.

Are you sure?

Good point. I didn’t create a dichotomy, however. [false or otherwise]
I could have been clearer had I written more to contrast Hughes’ statement with those who seem to believe it’s possible for a grove of trees to be simultaneously a good global proxy and poor local proxy. This is what I meant by “teleconnections”. The point is, he doesn’t seem to be pushing the same view as some others do. He also seems to be saying that Mann also agreed that trees couldn’t be ‘teleconnected’ without being tuned into the local environment.

Most of that smog follows I-10, out past Cabezon, then into the Salton Trough. From there, some of it can then indeed reach out into the Grand Canyon and 4-corners area. Although, truthfully, when Arizonans try to blame SoCal for their air pollution issues, its a bit dinengenous. Look at Phoenix and look at the coal power plants. That’s where most of the Grand Canyon and 4-corners smog is actually from. The southern Rockies trap it all and the prevailing winds, which have a southerly component during most of the year, move it in a net north direction.

Smog from the SF Bay Area is well known to blow through the Altamont and Pacheco Passes, and end up in the San Joaquin Valley. From there, the fierce winds which sometimes blow through the Tehachapi Pass, east of Bakersfield (witness all the power generation windmills there) can actually bring some of it into the Northern Mojave and Owens Valley.