Reader Bart S. has argued that Cook et al [QSR 2004] disposed of the "Divergence Problem", the name applied at the NAS panel on March 2-3, 2006 for the problem that, if the proxies do not record late 20th century warming, how can we be sure that they recorded potential earlier warming in the MWP. […]
Otto-Bliesner asked me how I would do a reconstruction. As I’ve said on other occasions, I said that I didn’t know. I’m really reluctant to just apple-pick some series but it’s prbably worthwhile showing that you can pick apples as well as cherries. More constructively, I think that there are some approaches that look better […]
Back to reporting on our presentation to the NAS panel, after which I’ll report on Mann. We presented last in the day, immediately following von Storch. Hughes and Mann presented on Friday morning. We gave them a long written presentation, and touched the high points in our PPT, also providing them with a CD of […]
One of the concerns that people are increasingly expressing to us in reaction to demonstrations of methodology problems in Hockey Team multiproxy studies is more or less this: even if the methods used in these various studies are flawed from the point of view of a statistical purist, no one’s presented an alternative interpretation of […]
The minutes for the NAS Panel here includes a reading list. They provide citations for each of the PPT presentations, including ours. They mention a “handout” and “CD” from us. The “handout” was a formal written presentation to the panel, setting out the points in our PPT. It deserves a citation. I wonder whether they […]
Here’s a summary (archive)from Science of last week’s NAS panel. The heat was on a 12-person National Research Council committee last week as it tackled the politically charged debate over how scientists have gauged temperatures from the past millennium or two. Chair Gerald North of Texas A&M University in College Station kept the audience on […]
Luboà…⟠Motl pointed out that IPCC "needs" Ammann and Wahl in a peer reviewed journal. Let’s re-visit some curious timing issues, which Ian Castles brought up before and which need to be re-examined with the re-submission. The IPCC WG1 timetable (thanks to Ian for this) says the following: Third Lead Author meeting, December 13 to 15, […]
I’m posting up our July 2005 review of Wahl and Ammann. The recently accepted version is here. I’m posting this up for a variety of reasons. Mann relied heavily on Wahl and Ammann in his NAS panel testimony (which wasn’t even online as accepted last week) and so it’s hard to finish off the discussion […]
I noticed the following quote from Esper et al 2003 (reference in earlier post It is important to know that at least in distinct periods subsets of trees deviate from common trends recorded in a particular site. Such biased series represent a characteristic feature in the process of chronology building. Leaving these trees in the […]
Are any of you keeping track of the news on the trials of Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling? Andrew Fastow, their CFO, was on the stand yesterday. There’s a terrific book about Enron by Kurt Eichenwald, in which the House Energy and Commerce Committee is mentioned (they had a piece of some Enron […]
Climate Audit 
Sciencemag on NAS Panel
Here’s a summary (archive)from Science of last week’s NAS panel. The heat was on a 12-person National Research Council committee last week as it tackled the politically charged debate over how scientists have gauged temperatures from the past millennium or two. Chair Gerald North of Texas A&M University in College Station kept the audience on […]