Comments on: More Check Kiting at Nature

By: bender

bender — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:19:23 +0000

Academic check-kiting: the best & fastest way to erect a house of cards hypothesis.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:48:05 +0000

Re: Jonathan (#180), it is also notable that the supplementary information is substantial and seems to include raw data. People seem to be learning at last.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:39:06 +0000

Re: Hu McCulloch (#179), my interest was more in the editorial line being taken.

By: Hu McCulloch

Hu McCulloch — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:04:23 +0000

RE Jonathan #178
This sounds like a good candidate for Craig’s next update, assuming it’s really calibrated to temperature. Of course, however, the inclusion criterion shouldn’t be that it finds a MWP, but rather that it meets Craig’s criteria of peer review, temperature calibration, etc. This one is bimillenial, which is great, but I don’t think it’s really essential for Craig’s methodology that all go back to near year 1.

I’m on the road and can’t access the paper right now.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:57:51 +0000

There's a new paper in Nature on "2,000-year-long temperature and hydrology reconstructions from the Indo-Pacific warm pool". From the abstract

Reconstructed SST was, however, within error of modern values from about AD 1000 to AD 1250, towards the end of the Medieval Warm Period.

and from the main text

the reconstruction suggests that at least during the Medieval Warm Period, and possibly the preceding 1,000 years, Indonesian SSTs were similar to modern SSTs

See also the Editor's summary Taking the long view of temperature.

By: cdquarles

cdquarles — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:26:09 +0000

Re: Kenneth Fritsch (#170), Hi Kenneth. I have perused the two linked papers you provided. What a refreshing contrast to the Mann letter. I see that some still observe the "Don't make vast conclusions from half vast data!" rule.

By: John F. Pittman

John F. Pittman — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:58:34 +0000

I couldn’t find the article, but there is a nice article where they use the historic maps of Charleston SC to show the progression of barrier islands at the mouth of the harbor. They used maps centered to make an old style cartoon. One can see an island at the top-north forming and progressing southward until it is reabsorbed at the bottom-south.

I also could not find the article that had an estimate that barrier islands, and the marshes they create, are on the average destroyed every 500 years due to erosion and hurricanes.

More reasons to choose proxies most carefully, and word the publications more so with caveats, assumptions, and large error estimates.

By: Mark T

Mark T — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:23:31 +0000

Oh, I know it is. Even my comment that the Florida coast isn’t changing should be stated as “sort of.” In spite of our best efforts, attempts to constrain nature are largely in vain. Keep in mind, I was also living in St. Louis during all the flooding in the early 90s.

This just serves to point out that an assumption of all other factors being constant w.r.t. climate is typically nonsense. The concept of “constant” is man made in this regard, and actually requires man’s intervention in the first place.

Mark

By: Craig Loehle

Craig Loehle — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:43:23 +0000

Re: Mark T (#173), Visit the gulf coast where Ivan or Katrina hit and tell me it isn't still changing (in spite of our best efforts)

By: Mark T

Mark T — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:00:35 +0000

Florida looks the way it does now because of the storms. The coastline is the path they take. It isn’t changing further now because of the continual efforts to prevent erosion (by shipping sand in.)

Mark