Yes, Steve, I understood it was a different area. I just wanted to highlight two notable exceptions to any assumptions that precipitation patterns on the western slopes of the mountain ranges of the Pacific region are going to be uniformly wet. Rain shadows can affect a number of measurements ranging from precipitation quantities to radioisotopic identification of the sources of the precipitation. Investigators who may assume the historical precipitation patterns were dominated by current prevailing wind patterns may inadvertently produce false conclusions whenever and wherever past changes in prevailing winds and precipitaton sources also changed rain shadow footprints. I believe it is incumbent upon the invesitgators to first establish evidence of the rainfall patterns, rain shadows, and so forth before they can attempt to postulate any reasonable conclusions regarding precipation characteristics and sources.

Readers should note it is important to recognize there are areas of substantial precipitation along the West slopes of the Cascade Mountain Range which are subject to reduced rainfall because they fall within the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula. At present, the rain shadow mostly affects Island County and western portion of Skagit County. However, historical changes in the prevailing winds may have shifted the direction of the rain shadow to other adjacent areas in the past. At present, the rain shadow tends to reduce the precipitation at a rate of about ten inches for each ten miles as you go westward. Around the seacoast the average annual precipitation can be about 25 inches per year. Moving eastwards towards the Cascade Mountains, the rainfaill around Burlington – Mt. Vernon can be ten to twenty inches greater at around 35 to 45 inches per year. This increases further as you move into the Skagit River Valley until you reach nearly 100 inches of rain per year near the crest of the mountain range. Adiabatic heating of the winds on the eastern slopes of the mountains then dessicates the environments on that side of the mountains.

Where is the European Warm Period in the Bristlecone Record?

http://rabett.blogspot.com/

Graumlich did not archive her foxtail chronologies in the same time timely fashion. A number of her ffoxtail chronologies, including the ones in Graumlich 1991 cited in IPCC Review Comments, remain unarchived as are her Cirque Peak measurements which may not have been “temperature sensitive”. She archived some sites inMay 2007 this year, only after a long campaign by ne.