Thanks yttrium.The question is really a red hearing. The more...

Thanks yttrium.

The question is really a red hearing. The more important issue highlighted there is the divergence problem which explains the hockey stick nature of the "spaghetti" graphs. Discussions on this were done a long time ago here:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1530
and
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1579
and
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1626

Another discussion is presented here: http://climaterealist.blogspot.com/2008/09/mathematical-analysis-of-divergence.html

There are many other links - no need to produce the large number of links - those above suffice.

In essence the divergence problem distorts the more recent years due to the non-linearity of the response of trees to temperature.

More recently there has been the ongoing saga about the actual raw tree ring data. Numerous calls over many years were made to have them published so that others could study them. Eventually Briffa et al had to produce the data after the Royal Society forced them to do so. It was a victory for true science. Now others could see how the hockey stick graphs were created. Steve McIntyre was one who looked at the data very closely. He found another problem - cherry picking.

An interesting rundown of the history behind all of this can be found here:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html

as well as many other sites.

If you want a very detailed look at Steve's work, go to here:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=37&paged=2

So, in the end the original IPCC "spaghetti graphs" and by the looks of it the one butcherboy also posted belong to one and the same “family” of hockey sticks.

The most recent UNEP report on climate change retracted a similar looking hockey stick graph. The discovery of a Wikipedia graphic in the UNEP report must have been too embarrassing.

In conclusion those original hockey stick spaghetti graphs are dead. Please don’t just take my word for it. Do your own research. If you still won’t believe this to be so, then let’s agree to disagree, and leave other readers to make up their own minds.