You've mentioned several mechanisms: acidity, drought, insects, and presumably more. This raises two comparative questions in my mind.
First, changes in acidity, droughts, and insect infestations are certainly not events that are unique to the post-1960s environment. Do local temperature data from tree rings from prior time periods also show discontinuities during known periods of drought or insect infestation?
Second, there have been large-scale changes to the environment in the past, some for a short period (the "year without a summer") some for a longer period (the "little ice age"). Do tree rings correlate with known large-scale temperature changes, or do they show discontinuities of the type we are witnessing in the post-1960 era?
Look. Scientists aren't exactly stupid people. When they spend a lifetime studying something, you should assume that they've asked the obvious questions and try to find out the answers they have found rather than assuming that they are stupid and you're the first to notice the glaring issues.
I agree, but as a PhD student, I've found that highlighting errors in methodology, even in peer reviewed articles, is actually pretty easy. You sound like you're familiar with research methodology, so you should know just as well as I do. When taking classes on methodology, one of the principal methods of learning is critiquing the research designs, assumptions, questions, data sets, etc. of other scientists who have been published. It's not hard to find methodological errors, or at least questionable assumptions and questionable glosses over complex issues, when reviewing even the published work of others.
Unfortunately climate scientists are also humans who are under constant assault from people who can't and won't be bothered to actually learn the record.
Because climate interaction is non-linear and operating on a macro- and long-term scale, it will obviously have a hard time standing up to Popperian standards of falsifiability, and the public is going to have a harder time gaining confidence in climate science's conclusions. Just because climate scientists are under assault from wingnuts who see them as a nefarious player in the Culture Wars doesn't mean that they are excused from answering questions about their methods, assumptions, and data.
You've mentioned several mechanisms: acidity, drought, insects, and presumably more. This raises two comparative questions in my mind.
First, changes in acidity, droughts, and insect infestations are certainly not events that are unique to the post-1960s environment. Do local temperature data from tree rings from prior time periods also show discontinuities during known periods of drought or insect infestation?
Second, there have been large-scale changes to the environment in the past, some for a short period (the "year without a summer") some for a longer period (the "little ice age"). Do tree rings correlate with known large-scale temperature changes, or do they show discontinuities of the type we are witnessing in the post-1960 era?
Look. Scientists aren't exactly stupid people. When they spend a lifetime studying something, you should assume that they've asked the obvious questions and try to find out the answers they have found rather than assuming that they are stupid and you're the first to notice the glaring issues.
I agree, but as a PhD student, I've found that highlighting errors in methodology, even in peer reviewed articles, is actually pretty easy. You sound like you're familiar with research methodology, so you should know just as well as I do. When taking classes on methodology, one of the principal methods of learning is critiquing the research designs, assumptions, questions, data sets, etc. of other scientists who have been published. It's not hard to find methodological errors, or at least questionable assumptions and questionable glosses over complex issues, when reviewing even the published work of others.
Unfortunately climate scientists are also humans who are under constant assault from people who can't and won't be bothered to actually learn the record.
Because climate interaction is non-linear and operating on a macro- and long-term scale, it will obviously have a hard time standing up to Popperian standards of falsifiability, and the public is going to have a harder time gaining confidence in climate science's conclusions. Just because climate scientists are under assault from wingnuts who see them as a nefarious player in the Culture Wars doesn't mean that they are excused from answering questions about their methods, assumptions, and data.