The latter is at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2000/

The former is at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/

While Steve M clearly replaces Briffa’s 12 Yamal with 34 Schweingruber

As a sensitivity test, I constructed a variation on the CRU data set, removing the 12 selected cores and replacing them with the 34 cores from the Schweingruber Yamal sample.

Briffa claims the following:

McIntyre’s analysis involved removing the measurement data for 12 trees (from 3 of these sites POR, YAD and JAH), data that make up the most recent part of our chronology, and replacing them with measurements from 18 trees growing at a different single site (KHAD), slightly to the south of the locations of the removed trees and originating from a different source. This alternative “modern” set was not considered or used by Hantemirov and Shiyatov or in the previous analyses (Briffa, 2000; Briffa at al., 2008)

34 is not 18. This is Misrepresentation #1 in the Oct 27 paper.

Misrepresentation #2: Briffa claims that the Steve M. samples are from “slightly south,” without mentioning that Steve’s samples are “well within the Yamal” region, while his Taimyr and Sidorova sites are 400km apart, and the Taimyr and Balschaya Kamenka are also over 400 km apart.

Misrepresentation #3: Briffa asserts that those trees were not used in his own Briffa 200 and Briffa 2008, as if that were a mark of honor, in and of itself, while it is, in fact, the very core of the Steve M. argument – that Briffa used a very small selection of 12 trees from 400 km away instead of using the nearby Khadyta River sample of 34 trees.

Steve M. argues that the more nearby trees should have been used (especially since they wer a larger population), and asks why Briffa didn’t (and instead chose the much smaller population that didn’t happen to “diverge” from the up-sloping curve the Team/IPCC desired)- and then Briffa argues that Steve M.’s choices are wrong because he (Steve) “for a sensitivity test,” selects them instead of the faraway ones Briffa chose. One must conclude that Briffa would have taken exception if ANY other trees other than the Sidirova or Balschaya Kamenka ones had been used. But the argument is, and always should be, that it doesn’t matter which trees you pick, that the trend should always be the same, and especially for larger populations.

Briffa then goes on to say,

In one version of the chronology McIntyre included recent data only from the KHAD site.

Misrepresentation #4: Steve M. clearly stated that he did this as a sensitivity set:

As a sensitivity test, I constructed a variation on the CRU data set, removing the 12 selected cores and replacing them with the 34 cores from the Schweingruber Yamal sample.

For Briffa to mischaracterize this “sensitivity test” as realy being in “one version of the chronology” is mendacious. A sensitivity test that is clearly labeled as such cannot then be said to be “one version” without including the “sensitivity test” label, too.

Misrepresentation #5: Briffa stated (Oct 27):

In the second version he retained the data from the 12 trees used in the original versions of the RCS chronology as well as the data from KHAD. The two versions of his chronology exhibit different patterns of tree growth over the 20th century: one with a positive trend and one (that with only the KHAD data) indicating a clear negative trend in tree growth after 1950.

Looking at Steve M.’s Figure 3, Briffa’s assertion is a complete misrepresentation, to the point of being a lie. From the point of divergence between Briffa 2000 curve (red) and Steve M.’s reconstruction that excludes the 12 trees in question (black), the “merged” set does not go up, but actually declines slightly. It is obvious why Briffa did not show Steve M.’s graphs on Oct 27, 2009, because they do not support his textual assertions at all, and anyone reading his rebuttal paper would have seen his – I can’t avoid the term any longer – lies.

Steve M.’s analysis stands unwavering.

Briffa cannot argue without misrepresenting – without lying. He asserts that Steve M. uses the data wrongly, and misinterprets the data, yet when he points out the particulars, Briffa comes out as a liar, telling people that Steve M. does things that he does not do and that Steve M. can’t even read a graph.

Briffa Misrepresentation #6:

If one accepts that in this area, warmer temperatures are associated with enhanced tree growth, the “KHAD only” version could be interpreted as indicating generally reducing tree growth or a general cooling during the last 40 years. Both of these interpretations are largely at odds with the inference we have drawn from our published analyses.

The very point of Steve M.’s analysis is that Briffa’s “published analyses” – and “inference” drawn – is skewed by the 12 trees, the 12 trees brought in from afar when closer and larger populations were readily available in Schweingruber, thus the published analyses are wrong. And Steve even shows that when BOTH groups of trees are included, that the hockey stick disappears.

Nothing that Briffa argues in this rebuttal paper stands up to scrutiny.

In pleading innocence for the choice of the 12 trees and the exclusion of the larger 34-tree group from a closer, actual Yamal site, Briffa fobs the responsibility off:

…we simply did not consider these data at the time, focussing only on the data used in the companion study by Hantemirov and Shiyatov and supplied to us by them.

All well and good, but when Steve M. later points out the very different results using the excluded trees, Briffa, instead of thanking Steve, chose instead to discount and misrepresent Steve’s input – and then chose to not include the other trees. And why did he choose to not do this? Could it be that if he did, everyone would see that the hockey stick disappeared. Or that “the message” of unprecedented warming would have been seen to disappear?

And we come to the grandaddy of all his misreprentations:

Misrepresentation #7:

In his implementation that included recent data from only the single KHAD site, McIntyre produces a chronology whose recent character is dominated by the growth behaviour of trees observed in a narrower region slightly to the south of the original sites.

“…included only the single KHAD site”??? Come on, Keith! We all know it included the balance of the trees in the study! It was not ONLY those 34 trees! Yes, it excluded the 12 – but it did not exclude ANY other trees in the study. AND it was clearly spelled out as a “sensitivity test” – which Briffa keeps on misrepresenting.

Steve’s points are two: That with the 12 instead of the 34, the curve is WRONG in its steep ascent, and that with the 12 AND the 34, the hockey stick does not exist. Briffa plays a shell game on Oct 27th and Oct 30th, 2009, distracting people from the real point: The Briffa paper is wrong, and demonstrably wrong.

I would also make the obvious point that Oct 27th 2009 was only about 3 weeks before Climategate, the AGW catastrophe to end all catastrophes.