Paging Mike Mann – your dendrochronologist will see you now

From a very aptly named Dr Savidge…
Future generations will refer to the act of being called academically to account as “to be savidged” 🙂

Here’s my question: Did Rod Savidge ever say any of this out loud? Did he make his views known publicly?
I don’t know the answer to my question but I’ll make the general observation that it seems like too many scientists have been too quiet when they see the warmists trashing real science. Statistics and dendro would be two obvious areas. The consensus would seem a lot less consensusy if all of the objections to and problems with the shoddy science of the Team would be aired in public. It shocks me that they’ve gotten practically a free ride for 20 years. Other scientists need to stick up for their disciplines in public and call out shoddy science when it appears. The stakes are too high not to.

Thwack!
Next up: Alarmists start investigating whether Savidge is connected to Big Oil.

Ouch. Spanked with a very big wood thing with leaves.
This has a ring of truth to it. Sorry. Bad pun.

That is the central reason why the Hockey Stick Theory is utterly unsupportable. Trees != thermometers from the past. Additionally trees from one small location != representation of global conditions of climate.
The whole proxy temperature record taken from measuring tree rings is completely bogus and not even worthy of serious consideration as a high school science project. The fact that entire national budgets, at a time of USA + EU austerity, could be collapsed on the back of this crap is truly terrifying.
Are there any rational adults left? How have we become so dumbed down, and so passive as to have allowed these extremist reality deniers get a grip on power?

I seem to recall numerous comments here over the years questioning the validity of using tree ring width as a proxy for atmospheric temperature. Many commenters proposed that other factors were probably more important to the growth of a tree…like rainfall for example, or even wild animals relieving themselves on the base of the tree.

After clicking on the link and reading the email thread, near the bottom is this chestnut from the alarmist,
“Surely that is a good thing to do, but while you are going about doing
>that, we have wonderful opportunities to help people manage our earth
>more kindly and realistically. We think these kinds of questions are
>equally important, if not more important as we are likely to destroy our
>planet unless we learn quickly what the trees have to say about our
>past. Even though you disbelieve that we can read the earth’s history
>from tree rings, we have our part to play in the scientific world. Yes
>we need to learn from people like you, but fortunately few scientists
>consider us as ignorant and out of communication with “true” science as
>you.”
Which basically means,
“No we haven’t done the actual experimental research and that would be neat, but there are other uninformed scientists who already believe our crap, so we do not have just justify ourselves to a real tree expert who can see through our crap.
Good day.”
The Hockey team should do jail time for fraud!

kcom (January 3, 2012 at 3:40 am) asked if dendrochronologists have ever openly criticized Mann.
Well, Steve McIntyre’s experience suggests they have not…
http://climateaudit.org/2008/10/15/the-silence-of-the-lambs/

I too am a plant physiologist by training and raised these issues back in 2009
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=6363
Subject: Yamal and paleoclimatology
Dear Professor Briffa, my apologies for contacting you directly, particularly
since I hear that you are unwell.
However the recent release of tree ring data by CRU has prompted much
discussion and indeed disquiet about the methodology and conclusions of a
number of key papers by you and co-workers.
As an environmental plant physiologist, I have followed the long debate
starting with Mann et al (1998) and through to Kaufman et al (2009).
As time has progressed I have found myself more concerned with the whole
scientific basis of dendroclimatology. In particular;
1) The appropriateness of the statistical analyses employed
2) The reliance on the same small datasets in these multiple studies
3) The concept of “teleconnection” by which certain trees respond to the
“Global Temperature Field”, rather than local climate
4) The assumption that tree ring width and density are related to temperature
in a linear manner.
Whilst I would not describe myself as an expert statistician, I do use
inferential statistics routinely for both research and teaching and find
difficulty in understanding the statistical rationale in these papers.
As a plant physiologist I can say without hesitation that points 3 and 4 do
not agree with the accepted science.
There is a saying that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.
Given the scientific, political and economic importance of these papers,
further detailed explanation is urgently required.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Don Keiller.

In my opinion Climategate 2.0 is even more explosive than the original. I wonder if we’ll ever get the remaining emails un-encrypted? And will they blow the lid off completely? One lives in hope.

Dave N says:
January 3, 2012 at 3:46 am
Thwack!
Next up: Alarmists start investigating whether Savidge is connected to Big Oil.
===============
No they won’t. Why would an investigation be needed? They operate from the assumption that anyone who disagrees with them is connected to Big Oil, it becomes the burden of the individual to prove the negative.

Bloke down the pub says:
“I was given A.W.Montfords ‘The hockey stick illusion’ for Christmas, a cracking good read for anyone who doesn’t have it already. ”
——————————————–
Seconded. It’s a page turner even for those of us whose eyes glaze over when the numbers with funny squiggles appear.

As a fellow CA ‘lifer’ Mark T, same here
http://climateaudit.org/2007/03/23/latitudinal-treeline/#comment-82885
KevinUK

This is another example of the debate that always occurs between basic research and applied science. The problem comes from the isolation of disciplines from each other and that applied science must rely on disciplines in which has limited expertise. The solution it seems is multi-disciplinary projects rather than the assumption that you know enough of the basic science to get by. The biologists (and statisticians) should have been been collaborating with the climatologists from the beginning.

I think its time to move this treemometer from an indictment of the individual, to an indictment of the journals who published them. Mann knows what he did was a buggery of math and science, as does the other cloners of such garbage. We know it, they know it, they know we know it….. there isn’t much to do with that except point and laugh.
But, now, I think we’ve enough to move this forward as an indictment of the various journals, and most importantly, an end to the belief that published material is a euphemism for truth.

Pure pwnage is more like it!!!

I agree with almost all of these comments, but what about the response that reconstructions done using other proxies and excluding tree rings give similar results? Is that really the case, or just more obfuscation?

If Climate science had true peer review (not pal review), there would be no scandal. Of course there would be no hysteria either.

Stephen Pruett says: January 3, 2012 at 6:51 am
I agree with almost all of these comments, but what about the response that reconstructions done using other proxies and excluding tree rings give similar results? Is that really the case, or just more obfuscation?
Here is a non-tree ring reconstruction by Craig Loehle with Mann’s tree rings overlaid, without the thermometer record.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2q3arlw.jpg
If you go to Climate Audit, you can follow the history of this cluster f—. Not only did Mann mangle stats, he obviously cherry-picked the most unreliable samples, and did whatever it took to torture out the results he got. I suspect an honest selection of tree rings would give a more honest result, though with its own reliability issues. Trees aren’t thermometers, they do record good vs. bad growing conditions.

An excellent refutation of a ridiculous notion that the history of the world is written in tree rings. Everyone with any familiarity with history knows that there are other methods for understanding both the past and the future that have just as ligitimate basis in science as the reading of tree rings. These methodolgies, which have not a few decades of active use in providing people with the information with which to make informed decisions, but centuries, have been callously shunted aside and consigned to the trash bin of history in order to serve a pre-determined agenda. Perhaps now that the reading of tree rings has been exposed for what it is, those more ligitimate methods with their longer history will see a resurgance.
Tea leaves for example…

This, IMHO, is why Mann’s rendition of the hockey stick is unsupportable, its all speculation based. Anyone who knows Liebig’s Law understands this.
I’m no dendrologist myself, but anyone who knows much about biochemical and biophysical processes knows about the concept of “rate limiting steps”, nutrients, and other factors.
But wild trees also each have the problem of dealing with their own wild microclimate both above and below ground, which includes quite a multiplicity of events and topography throughout their possibly significantly unique histories that are simply still unknowns to this day. In other words, these are not plantation trees where such factors can be normalized so as to reveal the effect of the chosen nutrients and growth factors. Therefore, I don’t even accept the idea that in wild trees, ring widths or densities are a proven proxy for the total yearly mass accumulation of a tree. Then it seems to me that with stripbarks there’s also the problem that it appears that more and more of an individual’s tree rings measure “zero” for everything involved, including temperature, at the same time the rest of the tree was growing and is still growing.

Kcom says: “It shocks me that they’ve gotten practically a free ride for 20 years.”
You’re missing the fundamental point though: this is not science, it is and always has been politics. Different game with different rules and standards of behavior. You see, the reason The Team is finally losing ground these past years is Climategate 1.0. They broke a basic political rule; they got caught on the record. In politics you can do as you please so long as there isn’t a record of it, there’s plausible deniability. The good Dr S is likely playing a bit of politics himself to preserve his career and not have Green Peace drones sifting through his trash. It’s becoming less and less necessary, but I’m not surprised nor necessarily overly judgmental of people who have tried to cover their political asses while also trying to keep The Team honest. They do have bills to pay and families to support like the rest of us.
The key is now that the email is found and public, and given The Team’s diminished status in general, will he stick to his guns and say the same thing publically? Someone should contact him and ask him to guest write a post perhaps outlining his views on the subject.

DCA says:
January 3, 2012 at 7:37 am
“I agree with almost all of these comments, but what about the response that reconstructions done using other proxies and excluding tree rings give similar results? Is that really the case, or
just more obfuscation?”
===========
Good question. Can anyone answer that?
================================
They are all calibrated, mostly to each other….and some work better when you flip them around or upside down……. 😉

DCA here is a live link to the first one on the above list…
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/dec/14dec2011a4.html

OOOOOhhh SNAP!

One word:
TAXES
It is all about TAXES, it is not about tree rings, it is not about research, it is not about facts.
TAXES, MORE TAXES, MORE POWER FROM TAXES.
TAXES = POWER, that is their math.

[Anthony] …the assumption that these trees primarily measure temperature is an absurd speculation.

While I fully agree with you that trees do not necessarily primarily measure temperature, I think that “absurd speculation” is not quite correct. It IS reasonable to consider that tree-rings do measure temperature – and even “primarily” do. As a first step. All scientific understanding has to start with a speculation of “what does this phenomenon mean?”
The absurd part comes in when they don’t understand that “primarily” does not mean solely. Of course, tree-rings also measure precipitation. They probably also are affected by other factors (some perhaps significantly, in specific cases), but measuring (separating out) other forcings may be impossible. Measuring either temperature or precipitation using the rings (whether density or width) is a fool’s errand, though, since both affect ring formation, and are not the only factors. It comes down to the question of, “Which one contributes how much growth?” and that cannot be measured. In a particular tree is precipitation more or less than temperature?
But each can be correlated, statistically. Having said that, though, correlation is not measuring.
It might be hard to find a more appropriate peer-reviewed paper than this:
Bednarz & Ptak [Tree-Ring Bulletin, vol. 50, 1990] “The Influence of Temperature and Precipitation on Ring Width of Oak (Quercus robur L.) in the Niepolomice Forest Near Cracow, Southern Poland”
(http://www.treeringsociety.org/TRBTRR/TRBvol50_1-10.pdf)

Abstract
Analysis of the relationship between ring-width indices of pedunculate oaks (Quercus robur L.) in the Niepolomice Forest with average monthly temperatures (1826-1980) and total monthly precipitation (1881-1985) in Cracow revealed a strict relationship between tree-growth and the precipitation of June-July, May-July, and June-August. These relationships are described by a high percentage of agreement, at or around 70%, and coefficients of correlation (r-subxy) of 0.40 (June-July), 0.36 (May-July) and 0.30 (June-August). The group of 10 oaks with the highest coefficients between growth and precipitation yielded still higher correlations: 0.50, 0.50, and 0.412, respectively. High total monthly precipitation in June and July favors radial growth, while low precipitation reduces radial growth. The influence of air temperature on oak ring-width indices is less significant. The highest positive correlation occurs for January to April of the preceding year. Correlations for the years of radial growth have values close to or below (June) zero except for August. [emphasis added]

So, precipitation in this study means more to tree-ring growth than temperature. There goes the “primary” status of temperature in tree-ring growth. 0.40 for precipitation (the highest of the values) is, to my understanding, not a high correlation, though it does mean that some relationship does exist. Well and good. But when “influence of air temperature on oak ring-width indices is less significant,” well, that should raise some eyebrows. But from Table 1, the temperature-ring-width correlation in the study was only 0.01, at its highest, and negative in most cases. This is no correlation at all.
Yes, the speculation that temperature affects tree-ring growth is true. That is not absurd, as a starting point speculation. But for climate temperature studies the question is really, “Can we glean any precise temperature from the correlation of tree-rings and temperature?”
Correlation in itself – even when it is significant at the 0.40 level – cannot give specific measurements when worked backward. Even if temperature were the only factor, that would not be true. But with precipitation being at least as great a factor, working backward from tree-ring width to temperature – now THAT is absurd. Temperature is NOT the primary factor in tree-ring growth. That is what this paper clearly shows. Other studies may show evidence that temperature outweighs precipitation. Fine. But this paper still has to be considered, and as long as it is, the formula W(tree-ring width) = T(temperature) cannot be invoked without accompanying laughter.
So as to not cherry pick, from the paper there is this:

The inverse relationship between growth and temperature is emphasized by the percentages of agreement (Figure 3, Table 1). This relationship contrasts with that in the British Isles where high temperatures during the growing season favor oak growth (Pilcher and Gray 1982).

So, some studies argue temperature is a significant factor. With climate proxies using Siberian trees, one would ask which is closer to a Siberian climate – Poland or the British Isles.

In the southwestern part of the Sanomierz Basin, in which the Niepolomice Forest lies, the transitional character of Poland’s climate — between maritime and continental — is most apparent.

The consensus would be that Poland is more like Siberia than the UK. In any event, which is more a factor – temperature or precipitation – is not as big a final issue as the question of how much temperature projection can be gotten out of tree-rings that are as much (or more) affected by precipitation.
With the tree-ring proxy “divergence problem” (DP) in the instrument period that is the best-documented, one would suggest that the DP is not a problem at all. One might argue that the DP is, in fact, the norm. One might argue that there never was a correlation, except as a matter of random convergence for a few decades prior to 1940.
The speculation was not absurd, but it has not held up when put to the empirical test.

James of the West says:
January 3, 2012 at 6:43 am
“I hope those analysing tree rings as a temperature proxy took all those factors into account for every ring year of the tree in question and not just “temperature” !!!!!! I cant see how they did it. I manage research within a forest industry.
In one forest you can have dramatic variation in tree ring growth from tree to tree right next to each other due to all of the variables. Lots of noise, I am very skeptical of this as a good proxy of temperature unless you assume everything else is steady state.”
Spot on. I hope it is clear to everyone that Professor Savidge is not criticizing Climategaters for carelessness or poor statistical techniques but for a total failure to practice science. He asserts that their claims about proxies go beyond anything known to the science of tree physiology. Briffa, the clearest example, did not do empirical research on any of the factors listed by “James of the West” on the trees that he used as proxies. Even after the proxies diverged from thermometer measurements, even then, he did no empirical research on the trees to discover an explanation for the divergence.
It must be said again that Climategaters accepted tree ring data at face value and never did any science to learn the actual value of tree rings as proxies. On top of that, they cherry picked the data and invented fantasies about special trees having “teleconnection to global climate.”
Professor Savidge writes: “As I see it, the peer review process in dendrochronology must be fundamentally flawed to allow such publications.” Dendrochronologists ghettoized themselves. If this happened in the hard sciences, such as Plant Physiology, that scientific community would be up in arms and would put an end to it. But “Climate Science” exists apart from the hard sciences or any science. This is not something new in academia though it is the first time that it happened so close to the hard sciences. Back in the Sixties and Seventies, academia saw the creation of “Studies Departments.” At birth these departments were pre-ghettoized with their own journals and professional associations. They remain so today.
There is a great opportunity for a serious journalist to reveal the ghettoization of Climate Science and its journals and professional associations. It would go a long way toward explaining to the public why Climategaters have not been slapped down by the communities of genuine scientists.

Green Sand says:
January 3, 2012 at 7:02 am
“Drs Biffa, Osborn and Melvin are working through a £230k NERC grant on:-
“The Dendroclimatic Divergence Phenomenon: reassessment of causes and implications for climate reconstruction”
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/research/grants.htm”
Important info. Thanks. I wonder if it will contain empirical research? If so, will it explain why this research was not undertaken back in the Nineties before it was used to support the Hockey Stick.
It must be a rich grant because Briffa could have a best selling book if he came clean.

It’s time to give names to the various rings in the tree trunk cross section Dr. Michael Mann holds in his hands In his iconic picture. My candidates are:
The Arrogance Ring
The Ignorance-(Tree Growth)-Is-Bliss Ring
The Upside-Down-Tiljander Ring
The Precautionary-Principle Ring
The Ain’t-Grant-Money-Sweet Ring
The No-Show-Data/Methods Ring
The Flawed-Statistics Ring
The Superior-Smirk Ring
The Hide-The-Decline Ring
The Whitewash Ring, and
The Ego-Run-Amok Bullseye

Ken, I didn’t get a reply, but my email stimulated some internal debate (email 1625- see below) – basically how to “shoot the messenger”.
I also love the line from Phil Jones “I do feel strongly about academics moving outside their area of expertise.”
cc: “Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)”
date: Thu Oct 29 14:20:25 2009
from: Phil Jones
subject: RE: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request
to: “Ogden Annie Ms (MAC)” , “Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD)” , “Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)”
Annie, Dave,
Thanks for the thoughts. Still undecided but I probably won’t. Aware of academic
freedom and aware that I might not get such a reply as I got from Hull. It will likely just inflame matters more, but I do feel strongly about academics moving outside their area of expertise.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:46 29/10/2009, Ogden Annie Ms (MAC) wrote:
Dear Phil,
Do you know the heads of department at Oxford and Anglia Ruskin? Are you sure that they would dissociate themselves from their colleagues who have written? I know how frustrating you must find all of this so can understand why you feel you want to do something. But if you do decide to write, I would be cautious about how such a message is phrased – along lines of written more in sorrow than in anger… We want to avoid any accusation that you are trying to get people fired because they disagree with you.
Best, Annie
–
Annie Ogden, Head of Communications,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich, NR4 7TJ.
Tel:+44 (0)
[1]www.uea.ac.uk/comm
From: Phil Jones [[2]]
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:26 PM
To: Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD); Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)
Cc: Ogden Annie Ms (MAC); Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)
Subject: RE: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128;
EIR_09-19) – Response
Dave,
I am also happy with this response. There is a mistake in your Oct 29 letter in
the Code of Practice link. The ! should be a /
As an aside, this same person (Keiller) has emailed Keith Briffa since he put a
web page up this Wednesday on the Yamal chronology.
[3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/
Annie is aware of all this.
The email to Keith is requesting responses to an earlier email and is slightly
threatening. In it Keiller states that he finds Keith’s responses lack scientific
rigour! So instead he accepts the word of Stephen McIntyre who has hardly any
academic publications and has never produced any tree-ring chronologies in his life!

I’d like to point out to all of you commenters that the email exchange by Savidge is from November, 2002. It would appear that it has had no effect at all.

Steve Garcia says:
January 3, 2012 at 8:40 am
[Anthony] …the assumption that these trees primarily measure temperature is an absurd speculation.
………………..
The speculation was not absurd, but it has not held up when put to the empirical test.
========================================================
Steve, I hate to seem to nit-pick, but I think you guys are talking about two different things. Temps only partially correlate with tree rings during the growth season. In the case of the laughable temp reconstructions, they were using trees with a typical growth season of 8-12 weeks. This is where the absurdity comes in.
Suppose we examine a(or many) tree ring. And suppose just for a minute, we somehow know the moisture, sunlight, nutrient….etc. makeup of the past tree environment. Given all of this knowledge, we then determine the average temp for the growth season was 55°F. What does this tells us about the rest of the year? Well, absolutely nothing. This is what is absurd. We can’t possibly know those things which are required to determine the temps. But even if we did, we couldn’t possibly know what it says about the rest of the year. It is laughably absurd.

Dr. Rod Savidge, another Canadian (hurray for us), gets spanked in this exchange:
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5582
From: John Ogden
To:REDACTEDREDACTED
Subject: Re: Fwd: History and trees
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 16:15:25 +1300
Reply-to: REDACTED
Dear Professor Savidge, Hal Fritts’s comments were, as always,
to the point and gracious. I
have much less patience with your ignorance and arrogance. The
sampling and statistical procedures involved in the production of a
cross-dated chronology are of course quite different to those used in a
randomised experiment, but they are none-the-less logical,
rigorous, science. We have been through all those arguments so many
times – you are wasting everyone’s time.
John Ogden.
On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:16:20 -0700 “Harold C. Fritts”
wrote:
> Dear Ron,
> I respectfully disagree with you. We have reached out to you many times
> and find little but judgmental response. I have worked with this group
> for many years now and they are just as exact scientists as you. They
> are interested in what the tree tells us about the earth and its history
> and not as interested and experienced as you in how the tree works. I
> agree with you to the extent that we must understand how the tree works
> but I fear you have “created the reality that dendrochronologists are
> stupid and beneath your greatness” and that it will not ever change.
>
> People like you in the past such as Waldo Glock and Sampson at Berkley,
> CA made similar statements. When I was a young man, I set out trying to
> examine their criticism objectively with both physiological
> investigations and statistical analysis. I found that these criticisms
> could be met with data from solid physiological tests and even though
> those practicing the science at that time were astronomers, not
> physiologists. There are talented and insightful people in other
> sciences outside of plant physiology.
>
> I am sorry for all of our sakes. as the future holds many possibilities
> with many experts contributing to the future of science. If you could
> only get outside the judgmental ideas that you hold about us, I think
> you might be very surprised and pleased.
>
> Yes, I think many in this group oversimplify the response of the tree,
> but in the same way you oversimplify the practice of dendrochronology.
> We all have much to learn from each other, but calling each other names
> doesn’t further anyone’s science.
>
> I believe science is embarking on a course of greater cooperation among
> different disciplines. This implies respect and cooperation in both
> directions. We welcome your interest in dendrochronology but are
> saddened that you have so little respect for our integrity and honesty.
> It would be more appreciated if we could together work for a better
> future, not just quarrel, call each other names and delve on what is
> wrong with the past.
>
> Sincerely, Regretfully and Lovingly,
> Hal Fritts
>
> P.S.
> One other comment to my fellow scientists. I agree with Frank that I
> have made only a start at understanding the basis for tree ring
> formation. It will take much more work in physiology and modeling. In
> current discussions and debates on the importance of physiology and
> process modeling in dendrochronology, understanding plant processes
> often takes secondary impotence in the eyes of many
> dendrochronologists. I think this will change because I believe in the
> integrity of my colleagues, but I sometimes wonder how long this will
> take. I had at one time hoped that I might see it happen. We can
> answer such criticism, but not until we investigate further how the tree
> responds to its environment and how the tree lays down layers of cells
> we call the tree ring. Physiologists outside dendrochronology have
> little inclination to do it for us as this message reveals. We can and
> must do it ourselves by including, welcoming and funding physiological
> investigation in tree-ring research.
> HCF
>
>
> Rod Savidge wrote:
> >
> > To the Editor, New York Times
> >
> Indeed, its activities
> > include subjective interpretations of what does and what does not
> > constitute an annual ring, statistical manipulation of data to fulfill
> > subjective expectations, and discarding of perfectly good data sets when
> > they contradict other data sets that have already been accepted. Such
> > massaging of data cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered
> > science; it merely demonstrates a total lack of rigor attending so-called
> > dendrochronology “research”.
> >
> > I would add that it is the exceptionally rare dendrochronologist who has
> > ever shown any inclination to understand the fundamental biology of wood
> > formation, either as regulated intrinsically or influenced by extrinsic
> > factors. The science of tree physiology will readily admit that our
> > understanding of how trees make wood remains at quite a rudimentary state
> > (despite several centuries of research). On the other hand, there are many
> > hundreds, if not thousands, of publications by dendrochronologists
> > implicitly claiming that they do understand the biology of wood formation,
> > as they have used their data to imagine when past regimes of water,
> > temperature, pollutants, CO2, soil nutrients, and so forth existed. Note
> > that all of the counts and measurements on tree rings in the world cannot
> > substantiate anything unequivocally; they are merely observations. It
> > would be a major step forward if dendrochronology could embrace the
> > scientific method.
> >
> > sincerely,
> > RA Savidge, PhD
> > Professor, Tree Physiology/Biochemistry
> > Forestry & Environmental Management
> > University of New Brunswick
> > Fredericton, NB E3B 6C2
> >
> > >X-Sieve: cmu-sieve 2.0
> > >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, BuildREDACTED
> > >Importance: Normal
> > >Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:24:03 -0500
> > >Reply-To: REDACTED
> > >Sender: ITRDB Dendrochronology Forum
> > >From: “David M. Lawrence”
> > >Subject: History and trees
> > >Comments: To: REDACTED
> > >To: REDACTED
> > >
> > >I was rather horrified by the inaccurate statements about tree-ring
> > >dating that you allowed to slip into print in the interview with Thomas
> > >Pakenham today. Tree-ring science is an exact science — none of the
> > >data obtained from tree rings would be useful if the dates were
> > >inaccurate. Dendrochronologists don’t say much these days about how old
> > >trees are because they are interested in more important questions —
> > >such as “What can the tree rings tell us about our planet’s past?”
> > >
> > >You at The New York Times should know something about tree rings. A
> > >check on Lexis-Nexis shows that since 1980 you have run more than 100
> > >stories in which the words “tree rings” appear in full text. Some of
> > >the stories are irrelevant. But most are not, such as the July 13,
> > >2002, story in which you misspell the name of Neil Pederson at
> > >Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, or the March 26, 2002, story about a
> > >medieval climate warming detected in tree-ring data. I do not remember
> > >tree-ring dating being labeled an “inexact” science in stories like
> > >that.
> > >
> > >Did Walter Sullivan, who wrote a story about tree rings and drought on
> > >September 2, 1980, ever question the “exact” nature of tree-ring dating?
> > >He didn’t seem to question it on June 7, 1994, when he wrote a story
> > >about ash from Santorini and said that the ash cloud may have “persisted
> > >long enough to stunt the growth of oak trees in Irish bogs and of
> > >bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California, producing
> > >tightly packed tree rings.” You really do have to know when those rings
> > >were laid down before you can associate them with a specific volcanic
> > >eruption.
> > >
> > >I tell you what. I am a member of the National Association of Science
> > >Writers as well as a working dendrochronologist and occasionally paid-up
> > >member of the Tree-Ring Society. If you feel the need for a refresher
> > >course on tree-ring dating, I’ll be more than happy to try to introduce
> > >you to knowledgeable practioners in you neighborhood, such as Neil
> > >Pederson (not Peterson) at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. (It’s
> > >actually a local phone call for youse guys.)
> > >
> > >Sincerely,
> > >
> > >Dave Lawrence
> > >
> > >REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED
> > > David M. Lawrence | Home: (804) 559-9786
> > > 7471 Brook Way Court | Fax: (804) 559-9787
> > > Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: REDACTED
> > > USAREDACTED | http: http://fuzzo.com
> > >REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED
> > >
> > >”We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Pogo
> > >
> > >”No trespassing
> > > 4/17 of a haiku” — Richard Brautigan
>
> —
> Harold C. Fritts, Professor Emeritus, Lab. of Tree-Ring Research
> University of Arizona/ Owner of DendroPower
> 5703 N. Lady Lane, Tucson, AZREDACTED
> Ph Voice: (520) 887 7291
> http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/~hal
REDACTED—–
John Ogden

@Theo Goodwin 8:47 am:

I hope it is clear to everyone that Professor Savidge is not criticizing Climategaters for carelessness or poor statistical techniques but for a total failure to practice science. He asserts that their claims about proxies go beyond anything known to the science of tree physiology.

Theo, just to make sure it is understood, if you read the entire email, you will see that Hal, the dendro man is taking Rod Savidge to task for his high and mighty attitude. Hal defends the dendros staunchly, though much of his defense is an appeal to authority. Neither Rod nor Hal goes into technicalities in this email, though Rod seems to think the ARE playing WAY loose with the science. Both sides are arguing strenuously, and in such a case, I always look at it that the science is not settled – even though Hal seems to thank so. I give credit to both of them for fighting tooth and nail and yet keeping the lines of communications open.
Ciao.

@Duster, not disagreeing, but just a reminder, A.E. Douglass’ work in NM was on giving dates to the trees, not on temperatures.
In the process Douglass founded dendrochronology, but let us not forget that “-chronology” is the study of time, not temperature. That is dendroclimatology, and that is horse of another color.

@kcom 3:40 am
“Here’s my question: Did Rod Savidge ever say any of this out loud? Did he make his views known publicly?”
kcom, if you read the email, Hal in there stated that Savidge had made himself a total nuisance at at least one conference with his views, and that it was Savidge and his high and mighty attitude against all the dendrochronologists.
So, maybe he didn’t go public with it, but he sure made certain that the dendrochronologists got the message. According to Hal, though, no one listened to him.

Steve Garcia says:
January 3, 2012 at 8:40 am
You cannot assume that different environments are comparable. Also, you cannot assume that the other factors in wood growth that have been introduced by other commenters do not matter. Finally, scientists must do a better job of describing the environments in which the particular trees exist. As any forester will tell you, trees that are 30 feet apart can be in very different environments.
Serious scientists will create a canonical environment for a particular variety of tree. That canonical environment will be extremely well researched for all influences on tree ring growth. Comparing trees across Siberia, Poland, and Britain is nonsense without such a canonical environment.

The thread and peer-reviewed literature together supports Mr. Savidge’s position that dendrochronology exhibits a lack of objectivity, lack of improvement, is based on supposition, and is replete with confirmation bias.
Hal Fritts says: (to Rod Savidge)
“You perceive them to be present today because you refuse to recognize the checks and balances used by dendrochronologist to assure that false rings and missing rings are located and identified. They are not located by their anatomical nature as you might think they should be but by a procedure of replication and further replication until there is sufficiently small uncertainty to call it true.”
From the abstract of “Dendrochronology and Dendroclimatology” by Edward Cook:
[bolds mine]
“As is apparent from this discussion on crossdating, the discovery of locally absent rings requires comparing the ring-width patterns of several trees from a stand, the assumption being that not all sampled trees will be missing the same annual ring. So, Douglass was responsible for establishing the principle of replication in dendrochronology as well [15]. Only through sufficient replication is it possible to confidently declare that all locally absent rings, or other potential sources of dating errors, have been accounted for and the calendar year dates assigned to the tree rings are subsequently correct. This statement begs the question: What is ‘sufficient replication’? This question has no definitive answer. It can only be answered by the experience of dendrochronologists around the world who have dated hundreds of thousands of tree-ring series, including independent analyses of the same trees or wood specimens. Douglass and his protégé Edmund Schulman at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (University of Arizona, Tucson) often worked with fewer than 10 trees in their crossdating and climate analyses during the pre-computer days of dendrochronology. Today, 20 or more trees is a typical level of replication. Regardless, subsequent reanalysis of their crossdated wood has never found a single dating error.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470057339.vad013/full
1: New and improved analysis can’t find even one error in old and outdated analysis. So what’s improved?
2: We define what is “sufficient replication” therefore whatever replication we use will be sufficient. Why not?
3: It is assumed that a “stand” of trees won’t all be missing the same rings. So, there’s never a drought that affects an entire “stand” (20 or more trees)?
4: Mr. Fritts makes the statement: “We think these kinds of questions are equally important, if not more important as we are likely to destroy our planet unless we learn quickly what the trees have to say about our past.” The trees might say “more CO2 please”, but I think Hal has already decided what “they’re” going to tell “us” or as Mr. Savidge puts it: there’s ”no genuine desire to discover the truth”.
Also, note Mr. Fritts’ attitude doesn’t seem to be anomalous in the field:
”However, dendrochronology adds a new “twist” to this principle: “the past is the key to the future.” In other words, by knowing environmental conditions that operated in the past (by analyzing such conditions in tree rings), we can better predict and/or manage such environmental conditions in the future.”
http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/principles.htm
So, like the oracles of our ancient past the dendrochronologists will divine from the tea leaves tree rings the future of the planet. Yea, right.

Oh, dendrochronology! I thought it said “dendrophrenology.”

Glad to see there are still some excellent profs at my alma mater!

Has anyone considered that the support for Mannian hockey sticks is largely the reverse of rules of evidence that the prosecution must present in a court of law?
Consider DNA evidence v the Hockey Stick
It is crucial to show the method in presenting DNA evidence. If the prosecution cannot show unambiguously where they got the DNA sample from, that it was not contaminated, and that they used laid down procedures to extract and evaluate the DNA, along with gaining a measurable sample size, then the evidence can be struck down. On every measure, Mannian hockey sticks not only fail to reach the fail grade of DNA evidence, but actively suppress the evidence of massaging the numbers, and are constantly finding new ways to misrepresent the flawed numbers.
Even worse, if the prosecution tried to cover-up their flawed evidence by presenting the qualifications and experience of the forensics expert, along with a petition from every member of the local police department (including the cleaners and subordinates of the forensic expert) as the main validation of the evidence, rather than the validation procedures, would the judge not just dismiss the evidence, but the whole case as well?

@saltspringson 9:50 am:
“Dr. Rod Savidge, another Canadian (hurray for us), gets spanked in this exchange:
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5582 ”
Not so at all. (…but thanks for bringing email #5582 into this.)
Both Hal Fritts and Dave Lawrence did nothing but throw a red herring/straw man into the fray. Both of them argue about dating using tree-rings. But that is not what Rod Savidge was addressing at all. He was accusing the dendrochronologists of going beyond dating and telling the world that they could definitively say the (width or density of) tree-rings meant certain things, without ever having any understanding of what causes tree-rings to grow at the biological, cellular level.
Go back and read the email again, and you will see what I mean.

Steve Garcia says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:02 am
“Neither Rod nor Hal goes into technicalities in this email, though Rod seems to think the ARE playing WAY loose with the science.”
Consider what the professor says here:
“Physiologist remain to build any real confidence in their ideas of how environmental factors influence tree ring formation, and dendrochronologists therefore are not at all justified in pretending that they do.”
That is a claim about scientific method. As such, it is as accurate and damning a claim as can be made. It is the claim that Climategaters have gone beyond all available evidence in their claims about tree ring widths. The professor is working at the metalevel, the level at which scientific method is the topic. Scientific method does not present evidence for scientific claims; rather, it sets the standards that evidence must meet if it is to be acceptable.

kcom says:
January 3, 2012 at 3:40 am
“Here’s my question: Did Rod Savidge ever say any of this out loud? Did he make his views known publicly?”
Quote:
Consider also the frustration of Rod A. Savidge Ph.D. Savidge is a professor of tree physiology/biochemistry, Forestry, and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick. He vented the following interesting comments regarding the science of dendrochronology, published in a Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, November of 2002:
“As a tree physiologist who has devoted his career to understanding how trees make wood, I have made sufficient observations on tree rings and cambial growth to know that dendrochronology is not at all an exact science. Indeed, its activities include subjective interpretations of what does and what does not constitute an annual ring, statistical manipulation of data to fulfill subjective expectations, and discarding of perfectly good data sets when they contradict other data sets that have already been accepted. Such massaging of data cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered science; it merely demonstrates a total lack of rigor attending so-called dendrochronology ‘research’ . . . It would be a major step forward if dendrochronology could embrace the scientific method.” 25
http://64.91.228.42/~rational/showthread.php?s=50a0a88275113f8785947ee098981abb&p=1478262#post1478262

A E Douglass was an astronomer whose major work involved showing the correlation between tree rings, precipitation, particularly midlatitude drought cycles, and sunspot cycles.
http://ltrr.arizona.edu/sites/ltrr.arizona.edu/files/bibliodocs/Douglass, AE_Evidence of Climatic Effects in the Annual Rings of Trees_1920.pdf
I used his work to compare with the 22 year drought cycle that showed up through spectral analysis in the almost 200 hundred year precipitation record for York Factory on Hudson Bay.
It was an alien idea even then (1982) as my doctoral committee initially rejected its inclusion. Landscheidt later found similar correlations.
http://www.john-daly.com/solar/US-drought.htm
I distinguished between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ midlatitude droughts in a peer-reviwed paper;
“Climatic Change, Droughts and Their Social Impact: Central Canada, 1811-20, a classic example.” In C.R.Harington (ed) The Year Without a Summer? World Climate in 1816. 1992, National Museum of Natural Sciences, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa

A. E. Douglass was an astronomer whose main interest was dendroclimatology, particularly the relationship between midlatitude precipitation patterns, especially drought cycles.
http://ltrr.arizona.edu/sites/ltrr.arizona.edu/files/bibliodocs/Douglass, AE_Evidence of Climatic Effects in the Annual Rings of Trees_1920.pdf
I used his work because I found a similar 22 year drought cycle in a spectral analysis of approximately 200 years of precipitation data for York Factory on Hudson Bay that appeared correlated with sunspot activity. It was an alien idea even then (1982) as my doctoral committee initially rejected that portion of the work. I risked failure but insisted on its inclusion, which, to their credit, they approved.
Theodor Landscheidt later developed the relationship between solar activity and midlatitude droughts.
http://www.john-daly.com/solar/US-drought.htm
In a later peer-reviewed paper I explored the distinction between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ droughts.
“Climatic Change, Droughts and Their Social Impact: Central Canada, 1811-20, a classic example.” In C.R.Harington (ed) The Year Without a Summer? World Climate in 1816. 1992, National Museum of Natural Sciences, Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa

Duster says:
January 3, 2012 at 9:15 am
“The point here is that these data are generally published. Has anyone bothered to look at the other isotopic data associated with tree rings and C-14 data? The width:temperature argument used by Mann was simple minded at best, and reflected profound ignorance of the available associated data, which if submitted for C-14 dating work would be returned with other potential climatic data attached.”
There have been efforts to use O18 in tree rings as a proxy for temperature, but they took a big hit with the paper discussed in this post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/13/surprise-leaves-maintain-temperature-new-findings-may-put-dendroclimatology-as-metric-of-past-temperature-into-question/
The paper is here.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/earth/pdf/nature07031.pdf
The proxy method was based on the notion that the tree canopy,where photosynthesis was occurring, was at ambient temp. Since apparently it isn’t, the isotope ratios in tree rings don’t necessarily track the trees environment.

Tim;
Hm. Wonder what a d-ist would project as the t-ring outcome of a hot vs. cold drought.

Merovign,
Emotional to the power of 10.
Mann the cause not man.

Where, pray, are the trolls?
Infestation by troll normally appears quite rapidly.
They, obviously, concede defeat.
Treemometers? Pah!

GISS = 0.1656 + 0.6833*RSS + 0.0005592*Time
The above is a formula with a .99+ R^2 to find the GISS from the RSS where time is in elapsed months discovered by the tool.

ChE says:
January 3, 2012 at 1:52 pm
“Absolutely amazing. We don’t care how these treemometers work, we’re just interested in their results.”
Absolutely. Unfettered self absorption and arrogance: their “interest” in a topic justifies their scientific production on that topic.
Blinding stupidity: we are not interested in how the tree works.
This was a parody, right?

Savidge is right, you need hands-on, feeling, commonsense understanding of all the factors at work – if not the biology itself. But he refers to “dendrochronology” where he should say “dendroclimatology” or “dendrothermometry“. Fritts raises a straw man, not noticing.
Steve McIntyre launched a dangerous (/sarc) expedition into the fastnesses of these terribly remote forests to show how easy it was to take samples. Heck, Mann used all the bristlecone series for his hockey stick, but Graybill had collected them to prove – via the 20th century – that CO2 fertilization overrode temperature signals. Mann was IMHO making nonstop fraudulent claims right from the start.
I think the Idsos’ website goes into a lot of the real science – is the species sensitivity for CO2, moisture, temp? etc. Graybill worked with them.
I looked at lots of bristlecone pine pics until I could show their leery ruggedness and extraordinary individuality in my “no AGW” presentation (slides 41-46).

That the professor argues that statistics overcomes all (not to mention that he has to save the earth) reveals the flaw – one has to have a fundamental basis for making such assertions. And ‘hide the decline’ revealed all of that nonsense. Statistics may be necessary – but are not sufficient to their argument

This response by Hal is simply priceless…
>You perceive them to be present today because you refuse to recognize
>the checks and balances used by dendrochronologist to assure that false
>rings and missing rings are located and identified. They are not
>located by their anatomical nature as you might think they should be but
>by a procedure of replication and further replication until there is
>sufficiently small uncertainty to call it true. This particular point is
>a statistical point that I realize you cannot appreciate or accept. All
>science is based on likelihood and probability. That is why it is so
>important that things be replicated by other scientists. But you can’t
>replicate our experiment because you really do not understand what
>procedure and checks we use.

Commenting simply on the structure and general content of the Hal Fritts response, I must say that I am astonished (truly amazed) that Hal Fritts can be a prominent, accomplished scientist. Going simply from all the ad hominem comments and near-total lack of rigor in his response, it is a mystery to me that he could be a major figure in the field. But then I have have the same reaction to reading a lot of the emails of “The Team” etc. These slovenly minds are supposed to be leading scientists dictating worldwide policies involving billions of humans and trillions and trillions of dollars?

Theo Goodwin says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:14 am
This is the same Ed Cook that, in the original CRU email batch, said we know f*** all about climate variability >100 years. He’s as dishonest as the rest.

Don Keiller, Thank you for our reply. his comment,
“I do feel strongly about academics moving outside their area of expertise.”
Does not agree with his feelings about other academics, scientists, philosophers, politicians, media pundits or even poets, IF they happen to agree with him though, does it? Then they are all experts supporting the consensus I suppose!

Two weeks ago in the US a network televised a program reporting on the results of new extra deep drilling of core samples in the Antarctic. The lead-in implied that scientists came from the perspective that a total meltdown of the ice sheet had never happened…but would under current atmospheric conditions.
Surprise! The new core samples showed that the ice shelf has melted and reformed at least 60 times due to temperature swings as great as +5 degrees C from today’s mean temperature. New discoveries of non-fossilized tropical vegetation remains reinforced the fact that major climate change has been the norm for eons.
But, by the end of the program we were treated to the admonition that man’s continued green house gas emissions of CO2 will cause catastrophic rises in sea level beyond anything ever recorded. NYC will be inundated under 120 feet of ocean, Florida will largely disappear, etc. It was within man’s power to stop the coming catastrophe if we just banded together to save mother earth. Sigh.

Don Keiller I know its amazing , is Phil Jones ‘expertise’ , providing scientific ‘cover ‘ for political goals ?
But its not surprising in one way , under the ‘great’ Mann one thing climate scientists are not short off is ‘ego’ and ‘arrogance’ , which ironically in the end may be their downfall. And frankly when they fail I think a lot of people will be lining up to kick them on the way down , and whom some of these are, I think these are will surprise people.

jorgekafkazar says:
January 3, 2012 at 8:50 pm
APACHEWHOKNOWS says: “They need to study rocks.”
I’m sure they already have rocks in their heads.
Take it for granite that they’re wacke and may be full of schist. (Ouch. That wasn’t a gneiss thing for me to say.)

I don’t have a PhD in plant physiology and even I know that wood grows best in the presence of alcohol and pretty ladies. So I conclude that alcohol and sex had something to do with that explosive hockey stick growth.

Great, great finish to a good thread, Crusty, bravo, & from me, a respectful golf clap for an appropriate interval, a real classic. Thanks.