Technical Note: Correcting for signal attenuation from noisy proxy data in climate reconstructions

29Citations
Citations of this article
50Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Regression-based climate reconstructions scale one or more noisy proxy records against a (generally) short instrumental data series. Based on that relationship, the indirect information is then used to estimate that particular measure of climate back in time. A well-calibrated proxy record(s), if stationary in its relationship to the target, should faithfully preserve the mean amplitude of the climatic variable. However, it is well established in the statistical literature that traditional regression parameter estimation can lead to substantial amplitude attenuation if the predictors carry significant amounts of noise. This issue is known as "Measurement Error" (Fuller, 1987; Carroll et al., 2006). Climate proxies derived from tree-rings, ice cores, lake sediments, etc., are inherently noisy and thus all regression-based reconstructions could suffer from this problem. Some recent applications attempt to ward off amplitude attenuation, but implementations are often complex (Lee et al., 2008) or require additional information, e.g. from climate models (Hegerl et al., 2006, 2007). Here we explain the cause of the problem and propose an easy, generally applicable, data-driven strategy to effectively correct for attenuation (Fuller, 1987; Carroll et al., 2006), even at annual resolution. The impact is illustrated in the context of a Northern Hemisphere mean temperature reconstruction. An inescapable trade-off for achieving an unbiased reconstruction is an increase in variance, but for many climate applications the change in mean is a core interest. © Author(s) 2010.

References Powered by Scopus

Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries

1473Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

European Seasonal and Annual Temperature Variability, Trends, and Extremes since 1500

1434Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data

1281Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

Information from paleoclimate archives

0
518Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Speleothem Science: From Process to Past Environments

512Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Tree-ring reconstructed summer temperature anomalies for temperate East Asia since 800 C.E

203Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Ammann, C. M., Genton, M. G., & Li, B. (2010). Technical Note: Correcting for signal attenuation from noisy proxy data in climate reconstructions. Climate of the Past, 6(2), 273–279. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-6-273-2010

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

Researcher 20

50%

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 16

40%

Professor / Associate Prof. 4

10%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Earth and Planetary Sciences 26

72%

Environmental Science 6

17%

Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3

8%

Social Sciences 1

3%

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free