Friday, December 02, 2011

Ed Cook: "[the MBH camp has] "a fundamental dislike for the very concept of the MWP"; on being honest and open about evaluating evidence "I have my doubts about the MBH camp"; "They tend to work in their own somewhat agenda-filled ways"

2003 ClimateGate email

Can I just say that I am not in the MBH camp - if that be characterized by an unshakable "belief" one way or the other , regarding the absolute magnitude of the global MWP. I certainly believe the " medieval" period was warmer than the 18th century - the equivalence  of the warmth in the post 1900 period, and the post 1980s ,compared to the circa Medieval times is very much still an area for much better resolution.  [Briffa]

...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or even Bradley after I warned him about small sample size problems) to realize that some of the chronologies are down to only 1 series in their earliest parts....Bradley still regards the MWP as "mysterious" and "very incoherent" (his latest pronouncement to me) based on the available data. Of course he and other members of the MBH camp have a fundamental dislike for the very concept of the MWP, so I tend to view their evaluations as starting out from a somewhat biased perspective, i.e. the cup is not only "half-empty"; it is demonstrably "broken". I come more from the "cup half-full" camp when it comes to the MWP, maybe yes, maybe no, but it is too early to say what it is. Being a natural skeptic, I guess you might lean more towards the MBH camp, which is fine as long as one is honest and open about evaluating the evidence (I have my doubts about the MBH camp). We can always politely(?) disagree given the same admittedly equivocal evidence. I should say that Jan should at least be made aware of this reanalysis of his data. Admittedly, all of the Schweingruber data are in the public domain I believe, so that should not be an issue with those data. I just don't want to get into an open critique of the Esper data because it would just add fuel to the MBH attack squad. They tend to work in their own somewhat agenda-filled ways.  [Ed Cook]

Hat tip: AJ

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