But removing a time trend, whether quadratic or just linear, would seem to defeat the whole idea of a paleo proxy, which is supposed to have a uniformitarian relation to what it’s trying to measure.

This series is superceded by that of Proctor et al (2002).
In Proctor et al (2002), the detrending applied to the Proctor et al (2000) series was shown to be un-necessary and therefore the precipitation reconstructions are incorrect. The Proctor et al (2002) raw data is that which should be used.

A USEFUL STARTING POINT FOR SPELEOTHEM CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION IS TO ASSUME THAT:
· every sample has a different response to climate, and that even two stalagmites ten cm apart in the
same cave will have different climate signals.
· that non-linear responses should be expected due to the inherently non-linear hydrology of karst
· deeper, slower dripping samples will show more linear responses, but will also be lagged and
maybe even have no response to surface climate. In contrast, shallow and fast dripping stalagmites will be very responsive to climate but will be more difficult to calibrate and understand.
· Most climate proxies preserved in stalagmites are a complex mixture of soil, vegetation, rainfall,
evaporation, hydrological and geological processes.

Good grief. And y’all thought tree rings were a nightmare.

http://www.gsf.fi/esf_holivar/baker.pdf

Unfortunately the last page is pixelated.

Re: Steve McIntyre (#34),

my own calculations indicate that Trouet used the detrended data and NOT the raw data. Until this is resolved – and no offence is intended here – the explanation doesn’t meet my standards.

No offense should ever be taken. If you accept the principle of “trust, but verify” you should have no qualms releasing all code and data. Turnkey would be nice.

As I observed in my notes above, my own calculations indicate that Trouet used the detrended data and NOT the raw data.

The important question for this thread is what Steve M noted above and I was hoping that by being nice we could get a second reply from Andy Baker and let the auditor do his work.

I’d love to be able to have replicates

Univariate calibration = no CI ?

For example, the site in question is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and in a National Nature Reserve and we had very limited sample permission. So yes, I’d love to be able to have replicates, but in this case it has not been possible. But, you can get paleoclimate data from one sample, but to be confident it means that you really do have to understand how the climate signal is transferred to the individual sample.

I’d have thought that there should be a pretty strong “Special Scientific Interest” in getting this right. Maybe if the request is made for a second sample it would be granted? That way the value of the first should also increase – the info. gained from it would not be negated by getting a second sample.

Re: bender at 36 – how much further would/could a second sample take things?