On 04/12/2011 13:33, Terry Fields wrote:

If what the Wikipedia article you quoted was correct, the scientific
work in the intervening years the data should by now have been
incorporated in the main set. Has it?

This is really a bit of cart before the horse as I return to the
beginning of this particular discussion further down and expand on what
the issues were. Call me thick if you must but I have no real idea what
this "main data set" could be and no idea either whether the data you
refer to above are data relating to the first issue or the tree ring
data which which seemingly would have no place in any data set that was
used for modelling the modern climate.

No idea what you mean by that.

If the Wikipedia article you quoted was correct, the scientific
work undertaken in the intervening years should by now have been
incorporated in the main data set. Has it? Or are the researchers
still only 'aware of the issues'?

But which issues are you referring to?

I never referred to 'issues', but the Wikipedia article you quoted
did. Pop back and have a look at it.

Yes you did. Your reference to issues is still included above and I am
still not sure what you meant by your use, coupled as it is with
incorporating some work into some main data set. The modern divergent
tree ring data has no place in a model of the modern climate which
models climate, not tree rings.

With respect, the first mention of 'issues' was in your quote from the
Wikipedia article. As that raised the matter of 'issues', I then
quoted the exact phrase used in that article so that you would know
what I was referring to. I am therefore at a loss to understand why
you try to pin the use of the word onto me. Did you understand what
the Wikipedia article said? Do you always discuss matters in this
fashion?

If you don't like the Wikipedia article, why did you quote from it
extensively, including the term 'aware of these issues'?

It is not a matter of like or dislike. I was just quoting someone else's
viewpoint. So let me start from the beginning again. I stated my
recollection of one of the main points of the so called climategate
scandal. You responded with a very different take which concentrated on
an article in Nature which I hadn't recalled, remembering only the way
in which the wording in the actual e-mail had been taken out of context.
So to avoid muddying the waters further I posted two paragraphs from
Wikipedia on the subject without any comment. Ironically as it has
turned out I only posted the first of those paragraphs because of the
reference at the end of the second paragraph to issues. The first issue
was the current lack of understanding about short term energy flows and
the second was the anomalous tree ring data.

It would appear to be the tree
ring data but that has no real relevance to models of the current
climate as the measured temperatures make derived data redundant.

As the trees are affected by the climate they live in, and the ring
formation reflects that, then if the tree-ring data doesn't fit that
of the models, I suggest that the models are inadequate. And, if they
inadequate in this respect, it begs the question of what other
inadequacies they contain that are not so amenable to such testing.

The climate models model climate not tree rings. End of story.

--
Roger Chapman