Other data sources - Ice Ages and Interglacials: Measurements, Interpretation, and Models - page 189

They considered three possible explanations for these differences: (1) that the
d 18 O events recorded in these groundwater and oceanic records are synchronous,
and the Devil's Hole chronology is wrong; (2) that the events are synchronous,
and the SPECMAP chronology is wrong; or (3) that the events are not syn-
chronous, and both chronologies are right. They did not seem to consider the
possibility that the data in both cases are too inherently noisy to make such
comparisons meaningful. The arguments that follow are complex, but Imbrie et al.
(1993) favored explanation (3). They also concluded that the Devil's Hole data are
not necessarily in conflict with the astronomical theory based on spectral analysis.
Winograd and Landwehr (1993) (W&L) responded to the published comment
in Nature (Imbrie et al., 1993). It is noteworthy that Nature chose not to publish
the W&L response on the specious grounds ''that it would be of interest only to
specialists working in this field.'' This makes no sense because (a) Nature is full of
articles that are so narrow, so abstruse, and so specialized as to be incompre-
hensible to the majority of scientists, (b) the validity of the astronomical theory of
ice ages is of widespread interest, and (c) Nature had already published one
critique and in fairness should have allowed a rebuttal. But we know from the so-
called ''hockey stick'' controversy regarding the variability of the Earth's climate
over the past 2,000 years (see Section 11.1.2 or Rapp, 2008) that some scientists
are in a position to exert influence on what gets published in journals (and what is
rejected). In the end, W&L issued a USGS Report instead of a response in Nature.
In defense of their chronology, W&L quoted no less an authority than the
renowned Wally Broecker who stated that ''

the new Devil's Hole chronology is
more firm than any other available isotopic age in this range. Nowhere else has a
high degree of concordance between 234 U- 238 U and 230 Th- 234 U ages been
achieved. No other archive is better preserved. No other record has so many
stratigraphically ordered radiometric ages.'' While Imbrie et al. (1993) focused on
spectral properties in the frequency domain, W&L emphasized that it is the timing
of ice ages as determined in their paleoclimate record that cannot be reconciled
with the astronomical theory. In addition to the problem of timing, W&L pointed
out that the Devil's Hole record indicates three other challenges to the astro-
nomical theory: (1) the duration of interglacial climates is closer to 20,000 yr than
the predicted 10,000 yr duration; (2) the length of glacial cycles increases steadily
the closer the chronology is to the present day, which is inconsistent with the
assumption of a quasi-100,000 yr cycle; and (3) a well-developed glacial cycle
occurs in the period 450-350 kybp at a time when the astronomical theory indi-
cates none should occur.

...

6.1.3 Devil's Hole: Global or regional data?

Questions were also raised regarding whether Devil's Hole data are representative
of global or regional temperature trends. Herbert et al. (2001) utilized benthic
d 18 O records to infer California coastal sea surface temperatures (SST) over the
past 500,000 years. They found that in the region now dominated by the
California Current, SSTs warmed about 10,000 to 15,000 years in advance of
deglaciation at each of the past five glacial maxima. However, SSTs did not rise in