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For example to support his position he uses the following. In central Argentina, he describes the climate as more humid with increased lake sizes during the MWP. For the North Atlantic he describes the effects of the LIA as being unusually cold and wet.

Reasonable questions, although these aren't "identical" places as you state. Your skepticism matches mine when I wonder where Mann documents the counterbalancing warmth that would be needed to show the whole world didn't cool down during the LIA. And as you dig it out, consider that it could appear to be just as "pulled out of a hat" as Soon's polar vortex changes (which you seem to have no interest in researching).

He does present some temperature information, but even this is botched. He used the same deMenocal and Keigwin papers as discussed before.

And all his other temperature information? All botched? You admit his hypothesis of precip extremes (dry/wet) and local temperature anomalies, but the same evidence fits nicely into global temperature anomalies if you just admit the reality of local effects. Yes, the polar vortices do mean cold=wet or warm=wet depending on location. Global temp changes will always vary by location.

Global temperature variations caused by the sun are the best explanation for the large numbers of climate anomalies clustered in the LIA and MWP, and it is clear that there where nowhere near as many anomalies in the past century.

Re: identical places, granted, I was just trying to illustrate the point.

Re: Mann, I have never understood Mann to say that.

In his 98 paper he says " ... the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth century which corresponds to an especially cold period."

In his 99 paper he says "Our reconstruction thus supports the notion of relatively warm hemispheric conditions earlier in the millennium, while cooling following the 14th century could be viewed as the initial onset of the Little Ice Age"

Also if you look at Mann's reconstruction you see that he shows a cooling of about 0.8C where as the papers that Soon cites seem to call for a cooling of between 1 and 2C. This is well within the error bars on Mann's work (I couldn't find any error bars associated with Soon's work). So, no I don't think Mann just pulled it out of a hat.

Re: Polar Vortex, hey, I wasn't the one that wrote it! If there is any researching/explaining I would expect it to come from Dr. Soon. Also, I don't see how he can make the link from Global temperature anomaly to climate anomaly.

You also say "You admit his hypothesis of precip extremes (dry/wet) and local temperature anomalies,". I said that this is what he says. I don't accept it as a general rule. It may mean warming, it may mean cooling or it may mean no temperature change.

Re: His other temperature information, I don't know. Some I think is correct (i.e. Mann but I note that he even botched the reference to Mann), some I will try to read up more on (i.e. there appears to be an interesting one on China I haven't read). I think that if he had left his research at dealing with these he would have had a much stronger paper.

Re: anomalies this century, I don't agree with you on this. I think the anomaly's are there but are reported different. Anyway, I would need to see more than Soon's list to confirm this in my mind.

Finally, you call me skeptical and that is true as I suspect it is of you. I also think that skeptic is a complement. A skeptic who thinks about things is an interesting person who can be trusted to make up their own mind and I hate sheep (give me a skeptic who's wrong over a sheep who's right any-day).