Just checked McIntyre's blog, and thought I should post an update.
Turns out there has recently been a study completed that has looked at updating temp proxies.
Here's the link
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/Theses/AbabnehDissertation.pdfTo save you reading the entire PhD dissertation, here's the relevant part.
The results reported in this paper are partially in accordance with other studies that support the hypothesis of a moisture related signal in bristlecone pine. Wright and Mooney (1965) concluded that bristlecone pine responds to a precipitation gradient rather than to cool alpine temperatures. Similar results were reported from a three year ecophysiological study of bristlecone pine by Fritts (1969). Such findings are not unexpected since the White Mountains are xeric with annual precipitation not exceeding 41.5 cm. Graybill and Idso (1993) and Graybill and Funkhouser (1999) compared tree-ring widths from the western United States, including one of the sites investigated in this study (Patriarch Grove), and found similar results: a low correlation with temperature that prevents use for temperature reconstruction, a negative correlation with the previous year’s temperature, and a highly significant tree growth response to spring precipitation. Bunn et al. (2003) and Tang et al. (1999) implicated soil moisture sensitivity especially in the strip-bark trees.
Will be tough to explain away this.....
