Yamal no more

Steve McIntyre has released a sudden flurry of blog posts on the subject of the Briffa et al 2013 paper. Today's offering contains the eye-opening news that CRU have finally backtracked from the Yamal hockey stick of "most important tree in the world" fame. The new version of the series is no longer hockey stick shaped and the modern portions resemble closely the versions of Yamal posted at Climate Audit as long ago as 2009, for which McIntyre was resoundingly condemned by mainstream climatologists.

Update on Jun 30, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Rob Wilson sends this sensitivity analysis for the D'Arrigo et al 2006 paper, so that people can see the effect of excluding Yamal. Rob writes:

Below compared are mean NH composites (z=scores w.r.t. 1750-1950). Show[n] for period with at least 2 chronologies per continent (American and Eurasia).

Red line is DWJ06 without Wrangells or Yamal - little change.

Green line is an extended version of the Wilson et al. 07 study. Completely independent data-set to DWJ06

D'Arrigo et al was discussed in the Hockey Stick Illusion, where I noted that it includes some other dubious series, including Tornetrask. So while a lack of sensitivity to Yamal is interesting, I'm not sure I'm convinced yet. It would be interesting to know which series are driving the hockey stick shape, or whether it's a function of the methodology or something.

Comments

[not banned yet]

I think Rob should sort his plotting out so that the individual series are discernible, add axis labels, name and date it and then post it at CA on the relevant thread.

Bish - o/t: is it just me or has the comment ticker stalled?

[Foxgoose]

Following on from Steve M's comment above - his detailed critique of D'Arrigo et al 2006 (last year, after the data was finally made available) appears to reveal a whole bunch of issues -

http://climateaudit.org/2012/10/20/a-belated-si-for-darrigo-et-al-2006/

[sHx]

" It would be interesting to know which series are driving the hockey stick shape, or whether it's a function of the methodology or something."

The problem is you can't trust anything a climate scientist says nowadays even if they say "life is good" on a bright sunny day.

[Jimmy Haigh.]

Jun 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM | Unregistered Commenter sHx

"The problem is you can't trust anything a climate scientist says nowadays..."

Sad but absolutely true.

[Mindert Eiting]

"or they will simply fire him?" Eliza, who are they? Right after climate gate Briffa became the general director of CRU. Jones had to retreat and became the research director.