Craig Loehle has contributed a post to WUWT claiming that a new temperature reconstruction by Ljungqvist (2010, A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra-tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millenia, Geografiska Annaler 92A(3):339-351) somehow “vindicates” his own work (Loehle 2007, A 2000 Year Global Temperature Reconstruction based on Non-Treering Proxy Data, Energy & Environment 18:1049-1058).



How does he achieve this vindication? He compares his reconstruction to Ljungqvist’s this way:



I centered both on their respective long-term mean values (I did NOT rescale) and got the following.



He then proceeds to wax philosophic about the excellent agreement between the reconstructions.

For those who are a little unclear (and for WUWT readers who are a lot unclear), let me translate his procedure for you: “Make the Ljungqvist reconstruction a lot hotter — then compare.”

Suppose we don’t heat up the Ljungqvist reconstruction by centering it on its long-term mean value — then how would they compare? They’d look like this:

Gee. When compared honestly, Loehle’s so-called “vindication” becomes an indictment. What a surprise.