“As I said before, people like Steve should publish their own reconstructions. While some in the paleo community might want to give these a rough ride, truth will out and the rest of us would be happy to see alternative reconstructions. Only by this way can we get the science right. And that’s the main point isn’t it?”

I sincerely have to judge that he has not paid much attention to what SteveM (and others) have posted here about the problems finding temperature proxies and methods that pass statistical muster when considering an a prior established selection criteria, using methods that do not deflate the historic variance or artificially produce a HS and avoid using questionable proxies that have very great influence on the overall result. Why would one under these conditions want to do a temperature reconstruction? And of course MM have produced critiques of climate reconstructions as have others. It should be misconstrued that doing a sensitivity test like removing certain proxies or adding others implies that the one doing this endorse the final result – they simply are showing you that the result changes and significantly. Even the Loehle and McCullough publication of a non-tree ring reconstruction was done, my view anyway, primarily to show the effects on a reconstruction minus tree rings – and no matter that ended in the early 20th century as the point was made.

I do not think that Monty or people like him “get it” and perhaps never will. I find it a major waste of time for them to come on here and make generalized statements and challenges that simply do not make sense in light of what has transpired here previously. It would perhaps be an overwhelming task for them to pry open their minds sufficiently to see the state of climate science and reconstructions in the light it is generally seen at this blog – and then proceed to ask appropriate questions.

As I said before, people like Steve should publish their own reconstructions. While some in the paleo community might want to give these a rough ride, truth will out and the rest of us would be happy to see alternative reconstructions. Only by this way can we get the science right. And that’s the main point isn’t it?

I have to disagree. On the contrary, Steve should feel no compunction to put forward a reconstruction of his own. His criticism is inately valuable, as is all valid criticism.

One would hope that the paleo community would feel grateful for the valuable insights that Steve has provided. His contributions constitute progress for their field.

Of course the all the proxies have problems BUT THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM WE MUST BELIEVE!!!

Classic.

I’m surprised you display your kool-aid drinking so unashamedly.

Also, if you had read this blog for such a long time, as you had claimed before, you would know that Steve has no interest in creating his own reconstructions, and your desire for him to do so doesn’t carry any weight. His contributions to this debate are enormous, more than yours I bet, by a country mile.

You shouldn’t come back until you can answer Clown and put up your single best hockey stick for debate. Until then you’re just a hand waver.

Thanks RomanM for your constructive comments. Yes, many of the reconstructions don’t go as far back as we would want. However, there is lots of evidence that glaciers now are more recessed than they’ve been for thousands of years (work by Koch, Luckman, Clague and loads of others)…since the Holocene Climatic Optimum….don’t just rely on Oerlemanns. Sure there are lots of problems with boreholes (as with all reconstructions) but I just have to reiterate my previous comment:

” Don’t you think it’s significant that multiple lines of evidence from independent proxies researched by independent teams all show hockey sticks?….. Especially as this is EXACTLY what we would expect given the huge increase in GHG forcing over the past few thousand years? In fact if there were NO hockey sticks then our assessments of climate forcing, sensitivity and attribution would be way out. And how likely is that”?

I’m obviously not going to post my reconstructions (there’d be no point in calling myself ‘Monty’ if you knew my name!). Judging by the tone of some posters I also wouldn’t want the vitriol that would follow. However, my reconstructions go back ‘only’ to the 16th century…but that is likely before the regional LIA in my study area. The paper was also fully peer-reviewed.

As I said before, people like Steve should publish their own reconstructions. While some in the paleo community might want to give these a rough ride, truth will out and the rest of us would be happy to see alternative reconstructions. Only by this way can we get the science right. And that’s the main point isn’t it?

I’m travelling now until the week end.

I presume that Oerlemanns is the 2005 glacier paper – which goes back to 1600 and looks like a hockey stick. Quelle surprise. Start at the LIA and it goes up from there

Huang (2004?) boreholes. Similar time frame (starts in 1500) and increases. No surprise there either. However, don’t the unrealistic assumptions in extracting “temperatures” from boreholes bother you? When you look at different holes, the results are all over the map.

Thompson (Lonnie?) has been written about numerous times here. He apparently STILL has not archived much of his data multiple years later…

You said that you have done reconstructions yourself (presumably going back before the LIA). Quite seriously, we would be pleased to have you discuss them with us, either here or at some other site (for example, TAV belonging to Jeff ID).

However, instead of people like you and Clown Car whinging that all climate science is crap, why don’t you start behaving like real scientists? Write reasoned critiques of the proxy reconstructions you don’t like and submit them to the peer-reviewed scientific literature? You could even try open-access journals like CPD where all reviews are open. Even better….develop your own reconstructions (make sure that your proxies don’t end in the 1930s though).

And don’t try to use the old canard that “scientists won’t allow us to get published”. Lindzen manages to publish papers, as does Roy Spencer, John Christy etc.

For further, non-tree, hockey sticks have a look at the glacier length records, borehole T records, Atlantic foram curves, ice loss calculations from ice caps, tropical ice cores.

And the multi-proxy reconstruction which uses these to produce a temperature reconstruction?

BTW, Steve has posted on most if not all of these proxies and found problems with all of them. You might want to start with the ice core guy from Ohio State whose name escapes me at the moment. He refuses to archive (at least in sufficient detail to let his work be checked. Glacier lengths are prone to selection bias, and need a lot of work to figure out what’s rebound from the LIA and what’s possible AGW. Borehole T records are just plain not good. I’m not sure about Atlantic forams, as opposed to ones like the mideast upwelling ones, but I don’t know they can be used for the past century because of turbidity problems. Ice cap losses (at least via satellite) have the problem that’s it’s too new a process to produce good data yet.

Now perhaps you have some magic bullet reconstruction which we should be looking at here, but quit being coy and act like a real scientist. Produce a link to an actual paper which can be examined and refuted or verified. We’re always anxious for fresh meat… Well actually I’m on a vegetarian diet at the moment, but I’m anxious for fresh veggies at any rate.

Let’s try one more time, name the top one, the best you got.

His search for “even-handedness” is hogwash of the first variety. Ask him if he has even-handedly placed these same demands on the hockey team… “which he clearly hasn’t.”

And, his statement

By the way, I haven’t come across any ‘alarmist’ scientists.

tells you he has never heard of James Hansen. You would think that Monty would want that audited (before it’s too late!).