Reader Tom P observed: If Steve really wants to invalidate the Yamal chronology, he would have to find another set of cores that also gave good correlation with the instrument record, but indicated a previous climate comparable or warmer than that seen today. As bender observed, Tom P’s question here is a bit of a […]
Now that we know the abysmally low replication of the modern portion of Briffa’s Yamal chronology (something previously unknown to specialists), I’ve been backtracking through some earlier documents to see how this may have impacted past studies. We’ve talked previously about how Briffa refused to provide measurement data to D’Arrigo et al 2006, resulting in […]
Recently, after the posting of the Phil Trans B archive on Sept 8, 2009, I determined that the Yamal data set as used by Briffa is not more “highly replicated” than the Polar Urals data set and thus there is no basis for the preferential selection of the Yamal chronology over the Polar Urals chronology […]
One of the aspects of the Yamal discussion that is perhaps clearer to regular CA readers than to new readers is that Briffa’s Yamal chronology was very different from ring width chronologies previously reported in the area (including by Briffa itself.) Shortly after the publication of Osborn and Briffa 2006 and D’Arrigo et al 2006 […]
I was one of the more industrious reviewers for IPCC AR4. In my Review Comments, I made frequent reference to Yamal versus the Polar Urals Update, expressing concern about the rationale for using Yamal rather than Polar Urals, an issue that is once again in play. Keith Briffa was the section author and can be […]
Obviously, there has been considerable controversy over the past few days over the Yamal data. First, let’s observe the continued silence of field dendros on the dispute. None have stepped forward so far to support Briffa’s use of 10 cores in 1990 (and 5 in 1995). As others have observed, their silence is rapidly becoming […]
In spite of suffering a serious illness (which I understand to be a kidney problem), Keith Briffa has taken the time to comment on the Yamal situation. The comment should be read by interested readers. If Briffa or any of his associates wishes to post a thread here without any editorial control on my part, […]
Just a quick interjection to note that the Yamal story has reached Andrew Orlowski of “The Register” under the title “Treemometers: a new scientific scandal“. [Steve: John A posted up this thread. I do not endorse everything in the article linked here. I also link to realclimate from time to time without agreeing with it. […]
Obviously there’s been a lot of discussion in the last few days about the difference between the CRU 12 and the Schweingruber 34. In making such comparisons, it’s always a good idea to look at the data in detail – something that obviously should have been done by Briffa and the Team before the widespread […]
One reader asked whether my RCS results held up using “standard” software. There is no “standard” software for RCS. It is different than ARSTAN. Further, despite the use of Briffa’s RCS chronologies in many multiproxy studies, until the present data sets were archived, to my knowledge, there were no public examples where both a measurement […]
Climate Audit 
Yamal and IPCC AR4 Review Comments
I was one of the more industrious reviewers for IPCC AR4. In my Review Comments, I made frequent reference to Yamal versus the Polar Urals Update, expressing concern about the rationale for using Yamal rather than Polar Urals, an issue that is once again in play. Keith Briffa was the section author and can be […]