The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

trees that match well with the ever-growing submaster chronology, and the dendrochronologist—if necessary--must manually add qualifying remaining series to it in order to fit them in. Here is what I informally call the “master chronology effect*”: Individual trees crossmatch more strongly (often considerably so) against a submaster or master chronology, in terms of both externals and internals, than they do against any individual tree in the collection. Brown and Baillie (2015, p. 204) explain why, “A submaster should always contain more matching signal than an individual ring pattern.” (p. 204). This occurs because the averaging of tree-ring indices* tends to accentuate the common variance (climatic signal) while averaging-out the uncommon variance (noise—the individualism of constituent trees). For example, if the r-value rises from 0.6 to 0.7, it means that the noise has declined from 0.4 to 0.3. [However, the “master chronology effect” does not always hold. Series sometimes crossmatch more strongly, when paired, than either of them does with the master chronology. This happens, for example, if the trees grew close together and were crossmatched against a master chronology that was composed of trees that grew over a wide geographic area. Owing to the fact that the master chronology effect is not absolute, the fact that some of the trees, identified in Table 1 and 2, “go against” the master chronology effect, is not a matter of concern.] Finally, it is important to realize that the “master chronology effect” implies the accentuation of a common signal, but not necessarily that of a climatic common signal. In fact, it does not even necessarily imply a passable-quality series of crossmatches (See Figure 5). Series 240760 crossmatches with the modest false master chronology that is made of the three circled falsely-matched series, at Cofecha t=7.2. This is more than it does individually with any of the three constituent series (t=5.1, 5.4, 6.4). The “master chronology” effect here is very tepid. A far more pronounced “master chronology effect” shows up in my experimental false master chronology (Table 1) and experimental false-crossmatch ensembles (Table 2), described later. NON-CLIMATIC EXPLANATIONS OF LONG TREE-RING CHRONOLOGIES This section reviews previous hypotheses for the compression of multi-millennial tree-ring chronologies before introducing my new one. 1. Multiple Annual Rings? Although this idea keeps being revived (e. g, Matthews 2006), there remains no evidence that bristlecone pines can grow more than one ring per year, except when very young, as noted by Woodmorappe (2003a,b; Woodmorappe 2009). The reason is simple: If the genetics does not allow for mid-season cambial* dormancy and subsequent mid-season re-activation in non-juvenile trees, there can be no plural annual rings, regardless of the climate! In fact, we now realize that xylogenesis (the process of ring formation), determined by the start and end of cambial growth, is, in bristlecones, governed primarily by genetics, and secondarily by photoperiod (Hallman and Arnott 2015). With C-14 factored, annual multiple-ring formation, were it to occur, would have to do so on a staggering scale. Note that the Eastern Alpine Conifer Chronology (EACC) is now over 10,000 years old (Nicolussi et al. 2015), and several other long chronologies are not much shorter. So, as a working hypothesis, given the Noachian Deluge at 3,000 BC and time-accurate C-14 dates beginning no later than 2,000 BC (as presumably governed by archeological and historical constraints), this means that at least 6,000 rings had to form in just 1,000 years, and then in a near- perfect lockstep manner. This appears extreme. A more-realistic Woodmorappe ◀ Tree-ring chronology shortening via disturbances ▶ 2018 ICC 659 Figure 5. Seven All-Falsely-Placed Yet Reciprocally-Crossmatching TRN Series, According to Cofecha: All But One Crossmatch Occurs at the Traditional Minimal Threshold of t≥3.5. A modest “master chronology effect” develops (Series 240760, at 7.2, against the average of the three series in ovals). All this exists despite the fact that the seven-member ensemble flouts nearly all other dendrochronological criteria!