Tom Nelson has another Climategate 2 email well worth reading
Dendrochronologists get spanked by guy with expertise in tree physiology and wood anatomy
“However, there are bounds to dendrochronology, as there are to every field of investigation, and the discipline has spilled over way outside of those bounds, to the point of absurdity.”
“What troubles me even more than the inexactness attending chronological estimates is how much absolute nonsense — really nothing but imaginative speculation — about the environment of the past is being deduced from tree rings and published in dendrochronology journals.”
“…but dendrochronology has persistently rejected walking the hard road, that of understanding the fundamental genetic and environmental factors controlling wood formation. As I see it, the peer review process in dendrochronology must be fundamentally flawed to allow such publications. 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.
The bounds of dendrochronology will be extended, as will confidence in dendrochronological reports, when your group stops pretending that it knows the answers before it has done the needed research. Again, I am troubled by your group that it shows little humility, no genuine desire to discover the truth.”
The writer of this email:
UNB | Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management | Rod Savidge
Areas of expertise
Tree physiology
Wood anatomy
Plant
cell biology
==================================================
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.
Mann’s tree reconstructions are known to be statistically crap, and even if they weren’t, the assumption that these trees primarily measure temperature is an absurd speculation.
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“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?
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.
OT: http://news.yahoo.com/world-first-hybrid-shark-found-off-australia-070347608.html
Hybrid shark… AFP and some Aussie university on the deep end of climate change…
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?
—————————————————————————————————————-
Which studies do you mean DCA?
Besides Craigs study, which uses more proxies from more locations, check out these studies, all of which show a MWP, all of which were published in the last two years.
The Medieval Warm Period in Southern South America (14 December 2011)
The Medieval Warm Period in the Karakorum Mountains of Northern Pakistan (13 December 2011)
Millennial Climate Variability Along the Coast of the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula (30 November 2011)
Late Holocene Water Balance in the Experimental Lakes Area of Canada (29 November 2011)
Three Thousand Years of Climate Change in Central Iceland (9 November 2011)
The MWP and LIA in the Ross Sea Region of Antarctica (8 November 2011)
The Medieval Warm Period (and Little Ice Age) in Coastal Syria (2 November 2011)
The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age on Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada (18 October 2011)
Is Western North America’s Water Supply Imperiled by the Mere Maintenance of Earth’s Current Climate? (27 September 2011)
A 2300-Year History of the South American Summer Monsoon (21 September 2011)
The Medieval Climate Anomaly (7 September 2011)
Summer Temperatures in the Northern French Alps (21 June 2011)
The Medieval Warm Period at Lake Joux, Swiss Jura Mountains (15 June 2011)
Experts Rebut IPCC on Its Analysis of Medieval Warm Period (14 June 2011)
Two Millennia of Temperature and Precipitation Changes in Arid Central Asia (17 May 2011)
The MWP, LIA and CWP on the North Icelandic Shelf (11 May 2011)
The Climatic History of the European North Atlantic Seaboard (19 April 2011)
Nine Centuries of Warm-Season Temperatures in West-Central Scandinavia (5 April 2011)
The Uniqueness of British Columbia’s Medieval Warm Period (30 March 2011)
Advances and Retreats of Alaska’s Tebenkof Glacier (16 March 2011)
Medieval Droughts of Northern Europe and Beyond (8 February 2011)
The Roman, Medieval and Current Warm Periods in the Northwestern Italian Alps (2 February 2011)
Temperatures of the Past Six Millennia in Alaska (25 January 2011)
Climatic Conditions in the Fjord Area of Southern Chile (11 January 2011)
A 1600-Year Temperature History of Tropical South America (11 January 2011)
Tree-Trunk Tombs Tell Tales of Temperatures Past (11 January 2011)
The Medieval Warm Period in Southern Greenland (28 Dec 2010)
A Two-Thousand-Year Temperature History of the Extra-Tropical Northern Hemisphere (15 December 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea (14 December 2010)
An Environmental History of Yellowstone National Park (14 December 2010)
Holocene Climatic Change in the North American Great Plains (24 November 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period on the Antarctic Peninsula (24 November 2010)
A Review of Mid- to Late-Holocene Climate Change (23 November 2010)
Millennial Cycling of Climate in Northeast Japan (23 November 2010)
The Medieval Climate of the Atlantic Coast of France (11 November 2010)
A Millennium of Climate Change in Western Canada (4 November 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in San Francisco Bay (3 November 2010)
Using Magnetism to Study the Medieval Warm Period (28 October 2010)
Buried Peat Layers in a Japanese Subalpine Snowpatch Grassland (21 October 2010)
A 1300-Year History of West-Central Mexican Cloud Forest Climate (14 October 2010)
Climate and Fire in Sonoran Grassland and Desert Scrub (14 October 2010)
Two Thousand Years of Icelandic Climate (14 October 2010)
A Millennium of Reconstructed and Simulated Temperatures for Eastern China (13 October 2010)
The IPCC Spaghetti-Diagram Reconstructions of Paleoclimate are Incoherent With Each Other (13 October 2010)
Rapid Ice Loss on the Antarctic Peninsula (13 October 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period in Kyoto, Japan (7 October 2010)
Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction Clearly Shows the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age (Plus a Whole Lot More) (23 Sep 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period at Lake Silvaplana in Switzerland (22 September 2010)
The Case for a Global Medieval Warm Period Grows Ever Stronger (15 Sep 2010)
The Medieval and Roman Warm Periods in Southeast Italy (9 September 2010)
Mann and Company Still Malign the Medieval Warm Period (3 September 2010)
Greenland Temperatures of the Past Millennium Based on Nitrogen and Argon Isotopic Ratios (2 September 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in Northern Patagonia (6 August 2010)
Millennial Cycling of Climate in West Africa During the Holocene (5 August 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in Arid Central Asia (28 July 2010)
Characterizing the Mayan Terminal Classic Period (22 July 2010)
A Holocene History of Floodplain Occupation on the Upper Reaches of the Zapadnaya Dvina and Volga Rivers (22 July 2010)
Coherent Detection of the Medieval Warm Period in Multiple Data Sets (21 July 2010)
Two and a Half Millennia of Fram Strait Sea-Surface Temperatures (15 July 2010)
Fifteen Hundred Years of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones (7 July 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period in Northwest Lithuania (24 June 2010)
Fifteen Hundred Years of Climatic Oscillations in Southern Poland (21 May 2010)
Floods of the Guadalentin River, Southeast Spain (12 May 2010)
The Medieval Warmth of China (28 April 2010)
The Medieval Warm Period in Greenland (21 April 2010)
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……. 😉
@ur momisugly Mike Bentley says: January 3, 2012 at 7:00 am
I couldn’t agree more Mike. I would only add/throw the news media into the mix. A news media which has all but abandoned investigative journalism in favor of reflecting pop culturalism….sadly, much like supposed climate science.
DCA here is a live link to the first one on the above list…
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/dec/14dec2011a4.html
[SNIP: Off topic. -REP]
OOOOOhhh SNAP!
Doesn’t this thread contain a lot of confusion between the science of dendrochronology and that of dendroclimatology? Isn’t the former much more firmly established, since the process of dating by counting tree rings is relatively precise compared to infering temperature and other growth factors based on tree ring widths, densities, etc. ?
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.
Frank K. says:
January 3, 2012 at 5:54 am
“…Of note is that NASA by far gets the most Climate Ca$h(tm) – $1.33 BILLION(!!) – which represents a 20% increase over 2010.”
And to think, they can’t even put a manned mission into space.
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)
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:
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.
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.
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?
===========================================================
The others have their own problems as well. (Upside-down and whatnot.) IMHO, it mostly comes down to the definition of “similar”. Can we get a general view of our climate through proxies in the distant past? Sure! Can we get to the precision to state the MWP was 0.x warmer or colder than today? Not a chance. That goes for gases and little critters in sediments. Why? Because we don’t know if there has been or hasn’t been micro changes in the way things respond to external forcings. And, even if we did know, we still don’t have the precision to make absurd statements to the 1/10th or 1/100th degree. My favorite being the little sea critters that only live in exactly XX.XX degree water. Or, conversely, “we know the critters live in sea temps of XX, +/- 3 degrees, and then we invoke the law of large numbers.”
That said, we shouldn’t make much fuss about all of this until someone makes a big deal about creating another hockey stick. Its good entertainment to let them babble first and then correct them.
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.
David says:
January 3, 2012 at 8:09 am
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?”
Yes, and the answer is clear as crystal. All studies that use proxies are subject to the same criticisms that have been raised against using tree ring width as a proxy for temperature.
A million proxy studies that are as weak as the Hockey Stick are as valuable as the Hockey Stick; that is, worthless. A million flawed studies equals one flawed study.
There might be some good scientific studies that use proxies. But those studies will show the necessary empirical research as part of the study. At this time, no tree ring studies contain the necessary empirical research to support the claim that the proxy in question is a valid proxy.
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.
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 09:55:08 -0500
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Sender: ITRDB Dendrochronology Forum
From: Ed Cook
Subject: Re: Fwd: History and trees
Comments: cc: [log in to unmask]
In-Reply-To:
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Rod’s comments are remarkably ignorant and insulting. I suggest that he stick to what he knows best and not claim that he understands dendrochronology and its methods. That way he would not sound so stupid. To suggest that dendrochronology does not embrace the scientific method and is as biased as he claims verges on libel. Of course, Rod has the right to his opinion. It is just a shame that he chooses to expose his ignorance of dendrochronology in such a negative way. >To the Editor, New York Times > >Further to the message below, I want to assure you that not everyone agrees >with the representations by David Lawrence. 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”. > >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
http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0211&L=itrdbfor&T=0&P=1262
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
Tree rings were employed “dendrochronologically” (dc) originally in southwestern (US) archaeology to get precise dates for the construction of Anasazi structures. Since the buildings incorporated timber beams, often of whole trees, the years the trees used in the building were felled could be fairly easily estimated by ring counting and matching between trees, especially after a database of tree-ring width variance patterns was developed. Since there was good regional consistency in this, dc was considered a remarkable tool. With the advent of radiocarbon dating investigators noted some serious discrepancies between the C-14 and dc dates especially in dates derived from marine shell which draws carbon from a different reservoir. These days an RC (C-14) date is isotopicly adjusted using delta-O18 and carbon 12/13 isotope ratios from the samples submitted for dating. Delta-O18 is the most commonly used tool in geology for estimating temperature. Carbon isoptopes ratios reflect plant metabolic effects as well as reservoir characteristics.
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.
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!
No one seems to have noticed that Rod Savidge is debating none other than Hal Fritts in that email. Harold (Hal) Fritts is the founder of analytical climatology. His 1976 book Tree Rings and Climate, introduced to the larger world the numerical methods of tree ring appraisal that he had been developing over the prior 15 years. They are now the standard in dendroclimatology. Hal Fritts is really the father of modern dendroclimatology.
I’ve consulted Fritts’ book, and was impressed with his work. But I always wondered why he didn’t speak up to defend his field from the false science of dendrothermometry. From that email, however, one can see that he’s a believer in “the cause:” “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…”
It’s interesting to note that the entire exchange, apart from polemics, is about whether tree rings can be dated accurately. Not one word is expended about the basic failing that there is no falsifiable physical theory that provides a method for extracting a true temperature from a tree ring. This failure obviates the entire Mannian field.
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.
@tallbloke
Superb rhyming and meter. Thanks. It’s elementary that Tom Lehrer would be proud!