Zero point

Lately another version of who got the zero point has broken out with Craig Loehle feeling free to slip the recent Ljungqvist proxy reconstruction free of its moorings and move it up to his version. He then claims that they "match". Zeke Hausfeather has a pretty good take on this, and frankly Loehle's claim is not very impressive. Tamino points out that you can't simply shift the Ljungqvist data up or down without breaking it free of it's thermometer surface temperature calibration. Shifting both together would push the recent part of the Ljungvist reconstruction WAY UP THERE. However, Eli takes this opportunity to call the bunnies attention to an article in EOS by David Chapman and Michael Davis of the University of Utah where they joined several proxy reconstructions to the IPCC projections under various scenarios, setting the zero at right now. That, my friendly hares, is scary. As they say

Having the temperature history of the past thousand years displayed together with various future scenarios of a warming climate (Figure 1) provides the benefit of both hindsight and foresight simultaneously and makes the warnings of climate scientists ever more persuasive. Seeing where society is headed in terms of where it has been may help policy makers worldwide choose a sensible path into the future.

Eli would rather bet the carrots on sea ice.