textbooks of the relevant discipline, and if we are still not sure, we should perhaps ask either the data center staff or the author of the original study. Very commendable, Rob. Although you state that you're not a scientist, you obviously are scientifically competent enough to put to shame the likes of those, such as Carter (I'm loath to dignify him with his scientific title), who are willing to misuse/abuse/misinform/disinform - whatever his excuse is. With respect to 'legitimate' credentials of climate scientists, I attended a Monckton presentation in Noosa, Qld, in January, 2010, where Monckton was introduced by Dr Carter. Carter announced to that credulous audience that Lord Monckton's qualifications as a MA (Classics and Maths) were ideal to equip him to speak on the subject of Climate Change - so I guess that makes anyone and expert. In the blog post it is stated that: "In this there is no way to infer from GISP2 alone that any rise or fall in the record is a function of global temperature changes without looking at a wider range of site records". I think the reason that people sometimes get confused and use GISP2 to represent global/large scale temperature changes - is caused by the text in the abstract that is quoted in the GISP2 data file The abstract states: "Greenland ice-core records provide an exceptionally clear picture of many aspects of abrupt climate changes, and particularly of those associated with the Younger Dryas event, as reviewed here" The only