"To determine a temperature baseline for predicting response to solar cycles 24 and 25 (we’re currently in 23), Archibald takes a startling approach. Instead of using world-wide temperature data, only data from the US mainland is used. Additionally, Archibald decided that only data from rural meteorological stations should be used to avoid the urban heat island effect. Fair enough, you may say. But the catch is, he chose just 5 stations out of the hundreds and hundreds available! Not only did he only choose 5, all 5 were within several hundred miles of each other in South Eastern USA!"

Yes, but the paper in question is comparing 4 stations in US with 3 stations in Europe- and the 3 stations in Europe are also somewhere in the range of "within several hundred miles of each other"

The emphasis seems to be on finding stations with a long record temperature and having little heat island affect involved. And why is comparative of 3 stations in Europe "improved" by using hundreds of stations in America as a comparison- assuming [wrongly] that hundreds were available?

Quote from the paper [worrisome to "Nexus 6"]:
"THE DALTON MINIMUM
A period of two solar cycles with maxima of approximately 50 mimics the Dalton Minimum, which is a period of low temperatures in northern Europe from 1796 to 1820. This was due to very weak solar cycles 5 and 6, which had maxima of 47.5 and 45.8 respectively.
The temperature response to these cycles is illustrated in Figure 2 which shows the temperature profile of three European stations with a continuous record through the
Delton Minimum. The Oberlach Station in Germany experienced a 2.0° C decline over 20 years

THE RECENT TEMPERATURE RECORD IN NORTH AMERICA
To provide a baseline for projecting temperature to the projected maximum of solar cycle 25 in 2024, data from five, rural, continental US stations with data from 1905 to
2003 was averaged and smoothed. That is shown in Figure 3. Rural stations were chosen so as to eliminate the possibility of contamination by the urban heat island
effect. The use of a 98 year long data set precludes the possibility of the data being affected by short term local conditions. The smoothed average annual temperature of
the Hawkinsville (32.3N, 83.5W), Glennville (31.3N, 89.1W), Calhoun Research Station (32.5N, 92.3W), Highlands (35.0N, 82.3W) and Talbotton (32.7N, 84.5W)
stations is representative of the US temperature profile away from the urban heat island effect over the last 100 years (Data source: NASA GISS)"