Reply to “Comments on ‘Erroneous Model Field Representations in Multiple Pseudoproxy Studies: Corrections and Implications’”

Abstract

The commenters confirm the errors identified and discussed in Smerdon et al., which either invalidated or required the reinterpretation of quantitative results from pseudoproxy experiments presented or used in several earlier papers. These errors have a strong influence on the spatial skill assessments of climate field reconstructions (CFRs), despite their small impacts on skill statistics averaged over the Northern Hemisphere. On the basis of spatial performance and contrary to the claim by the commenters, the Regularized Expectation Maximization method using truncated total least squares (RegEM-TTLS) cannot be considered a preferred CFR technique. Moreover, distinctions between CFR methods in the context of the discussion in the original paper are immaterial. Continued investigations using accurately described and faithfully executed pseudoproxy experiments are critical for further evaluation and improvement of CFR methods