Why are we treating proxies as if they are now broken because we don't like the fact they show us to be cooler than the instrumental records? Why are we not focusing on the fact the tree rings show us to be in normal temperature ranges? What if instead of making the assumption the trees rings are broken... we just accept the fact they are still functioning as good proxies? My thesis will be presented in the next 2 parts... 1. We will show that the tree ring data "diverges from the instrumental data. 2. We discuss what the nutter do 3. We discuss reality 4. We will give my thesis... which I have seen no one else present. But someone must have guessed. Part 1. Divergence... this wikipedia article sums it up. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Twenty-year smoothed plots of averaged ring-width (dashed) and tree-ring density (thick line), averaged across all sites, and shown as standardized anomalies from a common base (1881–1940), and compared with equivalent-area averages of mean April–September temperature anomalies (thin solid line). From Briffa et al. 1998.[1] The divergence problem is an anomaly from the field of dendroclimatology, the study of past climate through observations of old trees, primarily the properties of their annual growth rings. It is the disagreement between the temperatures measured by the thermometers (instrumental temperatures) and the temperatures reconstructed from the latewood densities or, in some cases, widths of tree rings in the far northern forests. While the thermometer records indicate a substantial warming trend, many tree rings from such sites do not display a corresponding change in their maximum latewood density. In some studies this issue has also been found with tree ring width.[2] A temperature trend extracted from tree rings alone would not show any substantial warming. The temperature graphs calculated in these two ways thus "diverge" from one another since the 1950s, which is the origin of the term. Discovery[edit] The problem of changing response of some tree ring proxies to recent climate changes was identified in Alaska by Taubes 1995 and Jacoby & d'Arrigo 1995. Tree ring specialist Keith Briffa's February 1998 study showed that this problem was more widespread at high northern latitudes, and warned that it had to be taken into account to avoid overestimating past temperatures.[3] Importance[edit] The deviation of some tree ring proxy measurements from the instrumental record since the 1950s raises the question of the reliability of tree ring proxies in the period before the instrumental temperature record. The wide geographic and temporal distribution of well-preserved trees, the solid physical, chemical, and biological basis for their use, and their annual discrimination make dendrochronology particularly important in pre-instrumental climate reconstructions. Tree ring proxies are essentially consistent with other proxy measurements for the period 1600–1950. Before around AD 1600, the uncertainty of temperature reconstructions rises due to the relative paucity of data sets and their limited geographic distribution. As of 2006, these uncertainties were considered too great to allow conclusion on whether the tree ring record diverges from other proxies during this period.[4] In more recent studies evidence suggested that the divergence is caused by human activities, and so confined to the recent past, but use of affected proxies can lead to overestimation of past temperatures, understating the current warming trend.[2] Possible explanations[edit] The explanation for the divergence problem is still unclear, but is likely to represent the impact of some other climatic variable that is important to modern northern hemisphere forests but not significant before the 1950s. Rosanne D'Arrigo, senior research scientist at the Tree Ring Lab at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, hypothesises that "beyond a certain threshold level of temperature the trees may become more stressed physiologically, especially if moisture availability does not increase at the same time." Signs suggestive of such stress are visible from space, where satellite pictures show "evidence of browning in some northern vegetation despite recent warming." [5] Other possible explanations include that the response to recent rapid global warming might be delayed or nonlinear in some fashion. The divergence might represent changes to other climatic variables to which tree rings are sensitive, such as delayed snowmelt and changes in seasonality. Growth rates could depend more on annual maximum or minimum temperatures, especially in temperature limited growth regions (i.e. high latitudes and altitudes). Another possible explanation is global dimming due to atmosphericaerosols.[2] In 2012, Brienen et al. proposed that the divergence problem was largely an artefact of sampling large living trees.[6]
2. The agw nutter fraud... hide the decline... 3. Science. Apparently according to the agw nutters... in short.. the trees are broken. they present speculation about why the trees are broken. real scientists seem to mostly say... they don't know. 4. Common science and applied brain power explanation. There is no reason to believe the trees stopped working as good proxies. a. therefore they were good proxies then and good proxies now. b. if they have been good proxies... but they currently seem be lower then the current temperature data... one must realize they are proxies... not exact thermometer data. the proper assumption is that the entire data base proxy record is set a bit low. So match up the current data to the thermometer record. Doing so will then adjust the past proxy temperatures up. Conclusion... When you make the logical assumption that the tree record is still functioning as a good proxy you realize past temperatures should be adjusted up and therefore today's temps are in a normal range. Therefore the proxies are showing us that there is no evidence of global warming outside of normal temperature swings.
Now... a proper response to me thesis would be a scholarly attempt to show that other proxies are currently matching up with the instrumental record and that the tree rings are the only proxies diverging. But... I predict we will get insults spewed from agw troll leftist who hate real debate.
There was no "trick". The "decline" is about northern tree-rings, not global temperature Phil Jones' email is often cited as evidence of an attempt to "hide the decline in global temperatures". This claim is patently false and shows ignorance of the science discussed. The decline actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations since 1960.
Tree-ring growth has been found to match well with temperature. Hence, tree-rings are used to plot temperature going back hundreds of years. However, tree-rings in some high-latitude locations diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. This is known as the "divergence problem". Consequently, tree-ring data in these high-latitude locations are not considered reliable after 1960 and should not be used to represent temperature in recent decades. The "decline" has nothing to do with "Mike's trick". Phil Jones talks about "Mike's Nature trick" and "hide the decline" as two separate techniques. However, people often abbreviate the email, distilling it down to "Mike's trick to hide the decline". Professor Richard Muller from Berkeley commits this error in a public lecture: "A quote came out of the emails, these leaked emails, that said "let's use Mike's trick to hide the decline". That's the words, "let's use Mike's trick to hide the decline". Mike is Michael Mann, said "hey, trick just means mathematical trick. That's all." My response is I'm not worried about the word trick. I'm worried about the decline." Muller quotes "Mike's nature trick to hide the decline" as if its Phil Jones's actual words. However, the original text indicates otherwise: "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." It's clear that "Mike's Nature trick" is quite separate to Keith Briffa's "hide the decline". "Mike's Nature trick" refers to a technique (a "trick of the trade") by Michael Mann to plot recent instrumental data along with reconstructed past temperature. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.
There is nothing secret about "Mike's trick". Both the instrumental and reconstructed temperature are clearly labelled. Claiming this is some sort of secret "trick" or confusing it with "hide the decline" displays either ignorance or a willingness to mislead.
Al Gore knows that once ideas are planted in the heads of people, generations have to die off before the ideas go away. Introverts are the very worst at this. They think that their ideas are just the absolute shit and they really don't rate other people's ideas [or work, or anything else] at all... they are drawn to academia and it's well known that people that don't agree with the world view of academia, or any view of academia, are villified long before they are acknowledged... so right now, Al Gore is making a killing on this shit, the academics are doing their usual things, you know, heads up asses squarely, uncaring about their affect on the rest of us. It's good to continually ridicule the psudo science, there isn't much else that can be done.
There is nothing secret about "Mike's trick". Both the instrumental and reconstructed temperature are clearly labelled. Claiming this is some sort of secret "trick" or confusing it with "hide the decline" displays either ignorance or a willingness to mislead.