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New paper finds tree-ring proxy temperature data is 'seriously compromised' in the journal Climate Past.
Just in the last couple of years peer reviewed papers have been published in scientific journals of proxy studies of past climate temperatures that show no untoward increase in modern temperatures, i.e., no hockey stick, that have been done all over including in Norway, China, Chile, and Switzerland. Also, several studies have come out that support the idea that the medieval warm period was both global in extent and had higher temperatures than modern times.
Now we have a paper showing that tree ring studies overestimate modern temperatures creating a false impression of rising temperatures in the past 200 or 300 years. The reason for this is that earlier temperatures are always determined from old trees and trees tend to grow more slowly, producing narrower rings, as they get older. This gives the false impression that earlier temperatures were colder. This phenomenon was only described in 2004 and it hasn't been used to correct most of the previous tree ring studies. So even records not contaminated with bad statistical methods are called into question. The effect is pretty large and accounts for differences as much as 70%.
Just in the last couple of years peer reviewed papers have been published in scientific journals of proxy studies of past climate temperatures that show no untoward increase in modern temperatures, i.e., no hockey stick, that have been done all over including in Norway, China, Chile, and Switzerland. Also, several studies have come out that support the idea that the medieval warm period was both global in extent and had higher temperatures than modern times.
Now we have a paper showing that tree ring studies overestimate modern temperatures creating a false impression of rising temperatures in the past 200 or 300 years. The reason for this is that earlier temperatures are always determined from old trees and trees tend to grow more slowly, producing narrower rings, as they get older. This gives the false impression that earlier temperatures were colder. This phenomenon was only described in 2004 and it hasn't been used to correct most of the previous tree ring studies. So even records not contaminated with bad statistical methods are called into question. The effect is pretty large and accounts for differences as much as 70%.
