Clustering climate reconstructions

Abstract

A systematic coherence analysis is presented for the set of the most prominent millennial reconstructions of northern hemispheric temperature. The large number of mutual coherences underwent a clustering analysis that revealed five significant, mutually incoherent ("inconsistent") clusters. The use of multiple proxies seems to be causing the clustering, at least in part, but not in an easily definable, physical way. Alternatively, a multidimensional scaling is performed on the same set of coherences. This results in a graphic, two-dimensional rendering of the reconstructions whose geometry (location and distance) is given by the coherences. Both approaches offer complementary ways in dealing with the inconsistencies. © Author(s) 2010.