Email 5007, June 2007: Reviewer of a Briffa et al paper writes "I value the findind that the strenght of climate-tree growth relationships has not declined during the 20th century"

Email 5007

Review of `Trends in recent Temperature and Radial Tree Growth spanning 2000 years across Northwest Eurasia`, by Keith R. Briffa et al.

General Comments

Overall, I liked the paper. I value the findind that the strenght of climate-tree growth relationships has not declined during the 20th century, as this has been the cause of debate in the last years since a paper published ironically by the same author in 1998 (Briffa et al. 1998). This gives tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions in the area credibility and enables the authors to state that the 20th century has been unprecedented in terms of high temperatures in the last 2 millenia in NW Eurasia.