Alleged CRU Emails - 25 results below

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From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Ed Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Esper/Cook paper
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:35:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: "Malcolm K. Hughes" <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Crowley_Hegerl <tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, jto@u.arizona.edu, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Jan Esper <esper@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

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Hi Ed,

Just to reiterate one more key point---Superimposing the two series and
their uncertainties is not the whole story (although it is a definite
improvement over just showing the two reconstructions on top of each other
w/ know assessment of uncertainty). However, doing the above still only
poses the question:

apple +/- [uncertainty in apple] =? orange +/- [uncertainty in orange]

As we discussed in a previous email exchange (based on the correlations you
calculated between instrumental series w/ the trend removed) , the two
reconstructions should probably only share about 60% or so variance in
common in the best case scenario, where there is no uncertainty at all,
owing simply to the differing target regions/season...

So we need to be very careful w/ the following statement which you made in
your previous email:

"If so, this would not mean that the series are not significantly different
from each
other. One can't dismiss the highly systematic differences at
multi-centennial timescales quite so easily."

I'm not sure you can justify that statement based on sound statistical
reasoning!

I agree w/ your following statement "Why these differences are there is the
crux question."

However,I hope the discussion will accurately reflect the fact that the
leading hypotheses to be rejected in answering that question are 1) random
uncertainty in the two series owing to differing data quality and sampling,
etc. can explain the difference and 2) systematic differences owing to
differing target region and seasonality can explain any residual
differences after (1).

That may be a tough standard to beat, but it *is* the approach that Tom,
Phil, Keith, and I have all been taking in addressing the issue of whether
our different reconstructions are or are not inconsistent and the
conclusion has in general been (see e.g. IPCC which was really a consensus
of many of us, though admittedly only I was a lead author) that, despite
notable differences in the low-frequency variability, the different
reconstructions probably cannot be considered inconsistent given the
uncertainties and differences in seasonality/spatial sampling. I have a
hard time understanding why the same standard should not be applied to
comparisons w/ your current reconstruction?

Does your RCS reconstruction really not fall in the mix of all the other
reconstructions? Is it truly an outlier w/ respect to Phil's, Tom's, MBH,
and other existing N. hem reconstructions that are based on different
seasonality and regional sampling???

We've probably had enough discussion now on this point, so I'll leave it to
you to discuss the results in the way you see most fit, but I really hope
you take the above points into account, in fairness to the previous work...

I look forward to seeing the final manuscript in one form or another, in
any case,

cheers,

mike

At 08:10 AM 9/10/xxx xxxx xxxx, Ed Cook wrote:

>I do intend to put in a new Fig. 5 that will compare the mean RCS with MBH,
>including each series' confidence limits. This will be done on low-pass
>filtered data (probably 40 year because of what Mike has sent me). I am
>sure that there will be significant overlap of confidence limits,
>especially prior to AD 1600, when they are quite wide in MBH. If so, this
>would not mean that the series are not significantly different from each
>other. One can't dismiss the highly systematic differences at
>multi-centennial timescales quite so easily. Why these differences are
>there is the crux question.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ed
>
> >Dear Ed and Jan,
> >I have a couple of general comments, and then some specific little things
> >that
> >may be helpful. It is possible that some of the answers to my questions
> >may be
> >in the two manuscripts in review or in press (TRR and Dendrochronologia) to
> >which you refer.
> > It seems that your results are consistent with the general shape and
> >some of the detail of the MBH99 series, apart from departures before 1200
> >and in
> >the 19th century. As the two datasets are largely, but not completely,
> >independent, this is an important result. At the time when your
> >replication is
> >weakest, there appear to be differences between the linear and
> non-linear RCS
> >curves and the MBH series. Before about 1200 your dataset is dominated by
> >material from four sites, I think - Polar Urals, Mongolia, Quebec and the
> >Taimyr
> >Peninsula. It therefore seems to me that it is important to make the
> >kinds of
> >direct graphical comparisons that Mike suggests of both your series and
> >the MBH
> >series (superimposed and with their confidence limits shown). Perhaps the
> >differences you note are not robust, and then there would seem to be little
> >reason to seek climatological explanations. I suggest that the graphical
> >comparison Mike suggests will be important since it should allow some
> >assessment
> >of the extent to which MBH and others have or have not underestimated
> >temperature in the AD 1xxx xxxx xxxxperiod, if your arguments hold up.
> > I think that a reasonable reader would have some questions about this
> >particular application of the RCS approach. Maybe an expansion of the
> >footnote
> >might help. How does the determination of the form of the regional
> >standardization curve itself depend on replication within each sampled
> >population? Do we know that the regional standardization curve does not vary
> >with time? Or, do we know that the regional standardization curve does
> >not vary
> >with climate on multicentennial timescales? If so, how? Is it not quite
> >possible
> >that the level of the part of the curve for, say, trees between ages 100
> >and 300
> >is set by climate in the early life of the tree, or that it is itself
> >directly
> >determined by contemporaneous temperatures? A number of these questions
> >occur to
> >me because I have been struggling with RCS in the Yakutia material I have
> >been
> >working on with Gene Vaganov. We have a very good situation for the
> >application
> >of the method, with a couple of hundred samples for which we have pith - no
> >estimate needed. Even so, the resulting chronology, once calibrated, gives
> >impossible temperatures in the early part of the millennium. They imply mean
> >early summer temperatures of up to 18 degrees Celsius, which, at 70 degrees
> >north would have led to massive ecological and geomorphological change.
> I can
> >find no evidence for this. I would not be at all surprised if an
> >examination of
> >the Taimyr material you used were to show the same thing. I say this
> >because I
> >know Mukhtar Nuarzbaev's RCS chronology from the Taimyr shows these very
> high
> >levels at precisely the same time as the Yakutia material. Perhaps Mukhtar
> >and I
> >are misapplying the RCS method - a real possibility at least as far as I am
> >concerned. Alternatively, there is some problem with RCS that we have yet to
> >identify.
> >We are all stuck with a more fundamental problem, which is that we have no
> >way
> >to calibrate multicentennial variations. You have used one method of
> >producing
> >chronologies with greater low frequency variability, one that has some very
> >appealing characteristics. There are other ways the same objective could be
> >reached, but we do not have a simple way to choose between them in most
> >cases. I
> >do think it would be interesting to compare the RCS for the Sierra Nevada
> >material you used, if it contains enough samples to do that, with the Great
> >Basin upper forest border network, as highgraded to only contain samples
> with
> >minimum segment length of 500 years, and very conservatively detrended.
> >
> >Here are some specific points:
> >In the penultimate line on page 2 you refer to 1,205 tree ring series
> from 14
> >locations. Some readers will for sure be confused by the word "series" in
> >this
> >case - how about "core samples" or "radii" or "trees"?
> >Page 3 - I need to check this, but I think the segment lengths in the
> >relevant
> >series in the MBH99 analyses are much longer than 400 years.
> >Page 5 - The differences of timing in high values between the linear and
> >non-linear chronologies are actually quite striking. I think if you and I
> >were
> >looking at a couple of subsamples from a single site we would put these
> >differences down to inadequate sample depth.
> >Page 6 - you talk about the two series (RCS and MBH) disagreeing strongly,
> >but
> >at the moment there is no basis available to the reader to see how strongly.
> >This comes back to Mike's suggestion of a direct graphical comparison with
> >confidence limits, etc.
> >
> >Hope this helps, Cheers, Malcolm
> >
>
>
>==================================
>Dr. Edward R. Cook
>Doherty Senior Scholar
>Tree-Ring Laboratory
>Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
>Palisades, New York 10964 USA
>Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
>Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
>==================================

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

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Original Filename: 1018539404.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Edward Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Your letter to Science
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 11:36:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: esper@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Ed,
It will take some time to digest these comments, but my initial response is one of some
disappointment. I will resist the temptation to make the letter to Science available to the
others on this list, because of my fears of violating the embargo policy (I know examples
of where doing so has led to Science retracting a piece form publication). So thanks for
also resisting the temptation to do so...
But I must point out that the piece by Malcolm and me is very similar in its content to
the letter of clarification that you and I originally crafted to send to Science some weeks
ago, before your co-author objected to your involvement! If there is no objection on your
part, I'd be happy to send that to everyone, because it is not under consideration in
Science (a quite unfortunate development, as far as I'm concerned). The only real change
from that version is the discussion of the use of RCS. That is in large part Malcolm's
contribution, but I stand behind what Malcolm says. I think there are some real sins of
omission with regard to the use of RCS too, and it would be an oversight on our part now to
comment on these.
Finally, with regard to the scaling issues, let me simply attach a plot which speaks more
loudly than several pages possibly could The plot takes Epser et al (not smoothed, but the
annual values) and scales it against the full Northern Hemisphere instrumental record
1xxx xxxx xxxxannual mean record, and compares against the entire 20th century instrumental
record (1xxx xxxx xxxx), as well as with MBH99 and its uncertainties.
Suppose that Esper et al is indeed representative of the full Northern Hemisphere annual
mean, as MBH99 purports to be. To the extent that differences emerge between the two in
assuming such a scaling, I interpret them as differences which exist due to the fact that
the extratropical Northern Hemisphere series and full Northern Hemisphere series likely did
not co-vary in the past the same way they co-vary in the 20th century (when both are driven
predominantly, in a relative sense, by anthropogenic forcing, rather than natural forcing
and internal variability). What the plot shows is quite remarkable. Scaled in this way,
there is remarkably little difference between Esper et al and MBH99 in the first place (the
two reconstructions are largely within the error estimates of MBH99!)!, but moreover, where
they do differ, this could be explainable in terms of patterns of enhanced mid-latitude
continental response that were discussed, for example, in Shindell et al (2001) in Science
last December. So I think this plot says a lot. Its say that there are some statistically
significant differences, but certainly no grounds to use Esper et al to contradict MBH99 or
IPCC '2001 as, sadly, I believe at least one of the published pieces tacitly appears to
want to do.
It is shame that such a plot, which I think is a far more meaningful comparison of the two
records, was not shown in either Esper et al or the Briffa & Osborn commentary. I've always
given the group of you adequate opportunity for commentary on anything we're about to
publish in Nature or Science. I am saddened that many of my colleagues (and, I have always
liked to think friends) didn't affort me the same opportunity before this all erupted in
our face. It could have been easily avoided. But that's water under the bridge.
Finally, before any more back-and-forths on this, I want to make sure that everyone
involved understands that none of this was in any way ever meant to be personal, at least
not on my part (and if it ever has, at least on my part, seemed that way, than I offer my
apologies--it was never intended that way). This is completely about the "science". To the
extent that I (and/or others) feel that the science has been mis-represented in places,
however, I personally will work very hard to make sure that a more balanced view is
available to the community. Especially because the implications are so great in this case.
This is what I sought to do w/ the NYT piece and my NPR interview, and that is what I've
sought to do (and Malcolm to, as far as I'm concerned) with the letter to Science. Being a
bit sloppy w/ wording, and omission, etc. is something we're all guilty of at times. But I
do consider it somewhat unforgivable when it is obvious how that sloppiness can be
exploited. And you all know exactly what I'm talking about!
So, in short, I think are some fundamental issues over which we're in disagreement, and
where those exist, I will not shy away from pointing them out. But I hope that is not
mis-interpreted as in any way personal.
I hope that suffices,
Mike
p.s. It seemed like an omission to not cc in Peck and Scott Rutherford on this exchange, so
I've done that. I hope nobody minds this addition...
At 10:57 AM 4/11/xxx xxxx xxxx, Edward Cook wrote:

Hi Mike and Malcolm,
I have received the letter that you sent to Science and will respond to it here first in
some detail and later in edited and condensed form in Science. Since much of what you
comment and criticize on has been disseminated to a number of people in your (Mike's)
somewhat inflammatory earlier emails, I am also sending this lengthy reply out to
everyone on that same email list, save those at Science. I hadn't responded in detail
before, but do so now because your criticisms will soon be in the public domain.
However, I am not attaching your letter to Science to this email since that is not yet
in the public domain. It is up to you to send out your submitted letter to everyone if
you wish.
I must say at the beginning that some parts of your letter to Science are as "flawed" as
your claims about Esper et al. (hereafter ECS). The Briffa/Osborn perspectives piece
points out an important scaling issue that indeed needs further examination. However, to
claim as you do that they show that the ECS 40-year low-pass temperature reconstruction
is "flawed" begs the question: "flawed" by how much? It is not at all clear that
scaling the annually resolved RCS chronology to annually resolved instrumental
temperatures first before smoothing is the correct way to do it. The ECS series was
never created to examine annual, or even decadal, time-scale temperature variability.
Rather, as was clearly indicated in the paper, it was created to show how one can
preserve multi-centennial climate variability in certain long tree-ring records, as a
refutation of Broecker's truly "flawed" essay. As ECS showed in their paper (Table 1),
the high-frequency correlations with NH mean annual temperatures after 20-year high-pass
filtering is only 0.15. That result was expected and it makes no meaningful difference
if one uses only extra-tropical NH temperature data. So, while the amplitude of the
temperature-scaled 40-year low-pass ECS series might be on the high end (but still
plausible given the gridded borehole temperature record shown in Briffa/Osborn), scaling
on the annually resolved data first would probably have the opposite effect of
excessively reducing the amplitude. I am willing to accept an intermediate value, but
probably not low enough to satisfy you. Really, the more important result from ECS is
the enhanced pattern of multi-centennial variability in the NH extra-tropics over the
past 1100 years. We can argue about the amplitude later, but the enhanced
multi-centennial variability can not be easily dismissed. I should also point out,
again, that you saw Fig. 3 in ECS BEFORE it was even submitted to Science and never
pointed out the putative scaling "flaw" to me at that time.
With regards to the issue of the late 20th century warming, the fact that I did not
include some reference to or plot of the up-to-date instrumental temperature data (cf.
Briffa/Osborn) is what I regard as a "sin of omission". What I said was that the
estimated temperatures during the MWP in ECS "approached" those in the 20th century
portion of that record up to 1990. I don't consider the use of "approached" as an
egregious overstatement. But I do agree with you that I should have been a bit more
careful in my wording there. As you know, I have publicly stated that I never intended
to imply that the MWP was as warm as the late 20th century (e.g., my New York Times
interview). However, it is a bit of overkill to state twice in the closing sentences of
the first two paragraphs of your letter that the ECS results do not refute the
unprecedented late 20th century warming. I would suggest that once is enough.
ECS were also very clear about the extra-tropical nature of their data. So, what you
say in your letter about the reduced amplitude in your series coming from the tropics,
while perhaps worth pointing out again, is beating a dead horse. However, I must say
that the "sin of omission" in the Briffa/Osborn piece concerning the series shown in
their plot is a bit worrying. As they say in the data file of series used in their plot
(and in Keith's April 5 email response to you), Briffa/Osborn only used your land
temperature estimates north of 20 degrees and recalibrated the mean of those estimates
to the same domain of land-only instrumental temperatures using the same calibration
period for all of the other non-borehole series in the same way. I would have preferred
it if they had used your data north of 30N to make the comparisons a bit more
one-to-one. However, I still think that their results are interesting. In particular,
they reproduce much of the reduced multi-centennial temperature variability seen in your
complete NH reconstruction. So, if the amplitude of scaled ECS multi-centennial
variability is far too high (as you would apparently suggest), it appears that it is
also too low in your estimates for the NH extra-tropics north of 20N. I think that we
have to stop being so aggressive in defending our series and try to understand the
strengths and weaknesses of each in order to improve them. That is the way that science
is supposed to work.
I must admit to being really irritated over the criticism of the ECS tree-ring data
standardized using the RCS method. First of all, ECS acknowledged up front the
declining available data prior to 1200 and its possible effect on interpreting an MWP in
the mean record. ECS also showed bootstrap confidence intervals for the mean of the RCS
chronologies and showed where the chronologies drop out. Even allowing for the reduction
in the number of represented sites before 1400 (ECS Fig. 2d), and the reduction in
overall sample size (ECS Fig. 2b), there is still some evidence for significantly above
average growth during two intervals that can be plausibly assigned to the MWP. Of course
we would like to have had all 14 series cover the past 1xxx xxxx xxxxyears. This doesn't
mean that we can't usefully examine the data in the more weakly replicated intervals.
In any case, the replication in the MWP of the ECS chronology is at least as good as in
other published tree-ring estimates of large-scale temperatures (e.g., NH
extra-tropical) covering the past 1000+ years. It also includes more long tree-ring
records from the NH temperate latitudes than ever before. So to state that "this is a
perilous basis for an estimate of temperature on such a large geographic scale" is
disingenuous, especially when it is unclear how many millennia-long series are
contributing the majority of the temperature information in the Mann/Bradley/Hughes
(MBH) reconstruction prior to AD 1400. Let's be balanced here.
I basically agree with the closing paragraph of your letter. The ECS record was NEVER
intended to refute MBH. It was intended, first and foremost, to refute Broecker's essay
in Science that unfairly attacked tree rings. To this extent, ECS succeeded very well.
The comparison of ECS with MBH was a logical thing to do given that it has been accepted
by the IPCC as the benchmark reconstruction of NH annual temperature variability and
change over the past millennium. Several other papers have made similar comparisons
between MBH and other even more geographically restricted estimates of past
temperature. So, I don't apologize in the slightest for doing so in ECS. The
correlations in Table 2 between ECS and MBH were primarily intended to demonstrate the
probable large-scale, low-frequency temperature signal in ECS independent of explicitly
calibrating the individual RCS chronologies before aggregating them. The results should
actually have pleased you because, for the xxx xxxx xxxxyear band, ECS and MBH have
correlations of 0.60 to 0.68, depending on the period used. Given that ECS is based on
a great deal of new data not used in MBH, this result validates to a reasonable degree
the temperature signal in MBH in the xxx xxxx xxxxyear band over the past 1000 years.
Given the incendiary and sometimes quite rude emails that came out at the time when ECS
and Briffa/Osborn were published, I could also go into the whole complaint about how the
review process at Science was "flawed". I will only say that this is a very dangerous
game to get into and complaints of this kind can easily cut both ways. I will submit an
appropriately edited and condensed version of this reply to Science.
Regards,
Ed
--

=================================
Dr. Edward R. Cook
Doherty Senior Scholar
Tree-Ring Laboratory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964 USA
Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
=================================

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
[1]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.[2]shtml
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References

1. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
2. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

Original Filename: 1018647333.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Ed Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Your letter to Science
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 17:35:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, esper@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Dear Ed, Tom, Keith, etc.
In keeping w/ the spirit of Tom's and Keith's emails, I wanted to stress, before we all
break for the weekend, that this is ultimately about the science, its not personal. If my
comments seemed to assail e.g. Keith's motives or integrity, etc. I believe that they were
misunderstood (as I tried to clarify that in my previous message), but I can see that
there was a potential for misunderstanding of my message (precision in wording is very
important) given the high levels of sensitivity in this debate. So I wanted to leave no
uncertainty about that. And of course, I very much apologize to Keith (and Tim) if they
took them my comments that way. They, again, were most decidedly not intended that way.
I hope we can resolve the scientific issues objectively, and w/out injecting or any
personal feelings into any of this. There are some substantial scientific differences here,
lets let them play out the way they are supposed to, objectively, and in the peer reviewed
literature.
Enjoy the weekend all.
cheers,
Mike
At 01:35 PM 4/12/xxx xxxx xxxx, Ed Cook wrote:

Hi Mike, Tom, etc,
Okay, I am quite happy to give this debate a rest, although I am sure that the issues
brought up will still be grounds for scientific debate. I admit to getting a bit riled
when I saw the ECS results on the MWP described as "perilous" because I regard that as
being an unfair characterization of the work presented. Be that as it may, my reply to
Science will be very carefully worded so as not to inflame the issues. Nuff said. Have a
good weekend. I certainly intend to do so.
Ed

Ed and others,
I thought I too should chime in here one last time...
I'll leave it to you, Malcolm, Keith and others to debate out the issue of any
additional uncertainties, biases, etc. that might arise from RCS in the presence of
limited samples. That is beyond my range of expertise. But since this is a new and
relatively untested approach, and it is on the basis of this approach that other
estimates are being argued to be "underestimates", we would indeed have been remiss now
to point this out in our letter.
The wording "perilous" perhaps should be changed, by I very much stand by the overall
sentiment expressed by Malcolm in our piece with regard to RCS.
One very important additional point that Malcolm makes in his message is that
conservative estimates of uncertainties, appropriate additional caveats, etc. were
indeed all provided in MBH99, and I have always been careful to interpret our results in
the context of these uncertainties and caveats. IPCC '2001 was careful to do so to, and
based its conclusions within the context of the uncertainties (hence the choice of the
conservative term "likely" in describing the apparently unprecedented nature of late
20th century warmth) and, moreover, on the collective results of many independent
reconstructions. Briffa & Osborn would have you believe that IPCC '2001's conclusions in
this regard rested on MBH99 alone. Frankly, Keith and Tim, I believe that is unfair to
the IPCC, whether or not one cares about being fair to MBH or not.
What is unfortunate here then is that Esper et al has been "spun" i to argue that MBH99
underestimates the quantity it purports to estimate, full Northern Hemisphere annual
mean temperature. Given the readily acknowledged level of uncertainty in both estimates,
combined with the "apples and oranges" nature of the comparison between the two (which
I have sought to clarify in my letter to Science, and in my messages to you all, and the
comparison plot I provided), I believe it is either sloppy or disingenuous reasoning
to argue that this is the case. The fact that this sloppiness also readily serves the
interests of the skeptics is quite unfortunate, but it is indeed beside the point!
It would probably also be helpful for me to point out, without naming names, that many
of our most prominent colleagues in the climate research community, as well government
funding agency representatives, have personally contacted me over the past few weeks to
express their dismay at the way they believe this study was spun. I won't get into the
blame game, because there's more than enough of that to go around. But when the leaders
of our scientific research community and our funding managers personally alert us that
they believe the credibility of our field has been damaged, I think it is time for some
serious reflection on this episode.
that's my final 2 cents,
Mike
At 10:21 AM 4/12/xxx xxxx xxxx, Ed Cook wrote:

Just a few comments here and then I'm done.

Dear Ed and Mike and others,
All of our attempts, so far, to estimate hemisphere-scale
temperatures for the period around 1000 years ago are
based on far fewer data than any of us would like. None
of the datasets used so far has anything like the
geographical distribution that experience with recent
centuries indicates we need, and no-one has yet found a
convincing way of validating the lower-frequency
components of them against independent data. As Ed
wrote, in the tree-ring records that form the backbone of
most of the published estimates, the problem of poor
replication near the beginnings of records is particularly
acute, and ubiquitous. I would suggest that this problem
probably cuts in closer to 1600 than 1400 in the several
published series. Therefore, I accept that everything we
are doing is preliminary, and should be treated with
considerable caution.

Therefore, I would guess that you would apply the word "perilous" to everyones'
large-scale NH reconstructions covering the past xxx xxxx xxxxyears including those that you
have been involved in. Why the sudden increase in caution now? It sounds very
self-serving to me for you to call ECS "perilous" and not describe every other
large-scale reconstruction in that way as well.

I differ from Ed, and his co-authors,
in believing that these problems have a special
significance for the particular implementation of RCS
they used, in the light of one of their conclusions that
depends heavily on that implementation.
As I understand what Ed, Keith and Hal Fritts have
written at various times about RCS, and from my own
limited experience with the method, it is extremely
important to have strong replication, and I don't see 50-70
samples probably from xxx xxxx xxxxtrees as a big sample. For
reference, most chronologies used in dendroclimatology
are based on xxx xxxx xxxxtrees, that is xxx xxxx xxxxsamples at 2 cores
per tree for a single "site", usually a few hectares.
Here are two passages from Briffa et al., 1992:
page 114, column 1, last paragraph, "For a chronology
composed of the same number of samples, one would
therefore expect a larger statistical uncertainty using this
approach than in a chronology produced using
standardization curves fitted to the data from individual
trees...............The RCS method therefore requires greater
chronology depth (i.e. greater sample replication) to
provide the same level of confidence in its representation
of the hypothetical "true" chronology." ECS mention this
issue.

As I said in my previous email, we hid nothing in terms of the uncertainty concerning
the pre-1200 interval. Are you suggesting that we should not have even shown those
results? If so, that is ridiculous.

page 114, column 1, third paragraph, there is a discussion
of the problems arising from applying RCS when pith age
is not known, "In the ring-width data, the final
standardization curve probably slightly underestimates
the width of young trees and could therefore impart a
small positive bias to the standardized ring-width indices
for young rings in a number of series. However, this
effect will be insignificant when the biased indices are
realigned according to calendar growth years and
averaged with many other series." The problem here is
that this latter condition is not met (in my view), and the
"small positive bias" that may be retained could turn out
to be important to the most controversial conclusion of
ECS (the Medieval question).

I can't speak for Jan here, but most of the data he used came from Schweingruber's lab.
I believe that pains were taken to estimate the pith offset and that Jan used this
information in his RCS analyses. Jan would be best to comment here. In any case, Jan has
done a number of experiments in which he has artificially added large pith offset errors
into the RCS analysis and the resulting bias is small. So, I do not believe that your
"view" is correct.

I also suspect that Keith
and colleagues underestimated both the size and
variability of the loss of years at the beginning of records,
but the point stands even if this is not so. So far as I can
see, ECS do not mention this issue, at least in the context
of a possible positive bias.

Are you claiming that the only possible bias is positive? I can show you examples of a
probable negative bias using RCS.

The discussion of RCS in the
supplementary materials seems to assume good
replication.

It was a generic description of the method. The replication is clearly shown in the
supplementary materials section as well as in the main paper. If you don't like the
replication, that is your opinion. I would love to have more replication as well. Who
wouldn't. But we did show the uncertainties, which you seem to ignore in your criticism.
Ironically, the ECS estimates of warmth in the MWP are not that dissimilar to those seen
in MBH, as ECS Fig. 3 shows. Are the MBH estimates of MWP warmth also similarly biased?

ECS, as Ed rightly points out, clearly indicate, in both
words and diagrams at several points in their paper and in
the supplementary materials, that the number of sites and
number of samples they used decreases sharply before
1200. Even so, ECS gives prominence (second sentence
of the abstract, for example) to the reconstruction in that
very period, and makes a comparison with the magnitude
of 20th-century warming. All the methods, and their
realizations so far, have significant problems. In our letter
(Mike and I) we draw attention to a specific problem with
this implementation of RCS that has a special bearing on
the reconstruction of a period to which ECS have drawn
attention. Hence the strong note of caution about the ECS
conclusion on the comparison between the 10th/11th and
late 20th centuries.
I hope it's clear from this that I don't disagree with the
general proposition that all existing reconstructions of
hemipsphere-scale temperatures 1000 years ago (or even
for all the first half of the second millennium AD) should
be viewed as very preliminary. If anyone is interested I
attach a short note on the replication in the year AD 1000
of records used in MBH99 to give an idea of what we are
up against.

There is obviously a lot more we can debate about here. I will simply stop here by
saying that I stand by the results shown in ECS and will say so in my reply to your
letter, pointing out that the use of the word "perilous" could be just as easily be
applied to MBH.

We all have a lot to do. I see four important tasks - 1)
more investigation of the strengths and limitations of
methods like RCS and age-banding - for example, how
many samples would have been enough in this case, does
the RC change through time? and so on; 2) use of tree-
ring records where the loss of low-frequency information
is least - those with long segments from open stands; 3)
the search for tree-ring parameters without age/size
related trend; 4) the development of completely
independent proxies with intrinsically better low-
frequency fidelity.
Cheers, Malcolm
The Briffa et al reference is to the 1992 paper, Climate
Dynamics, 7:xxx xxxx xxxx

Hi Ed,
OK--thanks for your response. I'll let Malcolm respond to the
technical issues regarding RC. I'm not really qualified to do so
myself anyway. Your other points are well taken...
Cheers,
Mike
At 12:09 PM 4/11/xxx xxxx xxxx, Edward Cook wrote:
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the reply. I too do not want to see anything
personal in our disagreements. It would be a shame if it got to
that and it shouldn't. I don't think that the science we are
talking about is sufficiently known yet to claim the "truth",
which is why we are having some of our disagreements. I mainly
wanted to clarify some issues relating to some criticisms of the
ECS results that I thought were not totally fair. My biggest
complaint is with Malcolm's contribution to your letter because it
really isn't fair to use such words as "perilous". ECS did not
hide anything and the uncertainties are clearly indicated in EGS

> Figs. 2 and 3. So, you can make your own judgement. However,

Malcolm's opinion does not invalidate the ECS record. If Malcolm's
statement is correct, than ALL previous estimates of NH
temperature over the past 1000 years are "perilous", especially
before AD 1400 when the number of series available declines
significantly in most records.
Ed
Ed,
It will take some time to digest these comments, but my
initial response is one of some disappointment. I will
resist the temptation to make the letter to Science
available to the others on this list, because of my fears of
violating the embargo policy (I know examples of where doing so
has led to Science retracting a piece form publication). So thanks
for also resisting the temptation to do so...
But I must point out that the piece by Malcolm and me
is very similar in its content to the letter of clarification that
you and I originally crafted to send to Science some weeks ago,
before your co-author objected to your involvement! If there is no
objection on your part, I'd be happy to send that to everyone,
because it is not under consideration in Science (a quite
unfortunate development, as far as I'm concerned). The only real
change from that version is the discussion of the use of RCS. That
is in large part Malcolm's contribution, but I stand behind what

> Malcolm says. I think there are some real sins of omission with

regard to the use of RCS too, and it would be an oversight on our
part now to comment on these.
Finally, with regard to the scaling issues, let me simply
attach a plot which speaks more loudly than several
pages possibly could The plot takes Epser et al (not
smoothed, but the annual values) and scales it against the
full Northern Hemisphere instrumental record 1xxx xxxx xxxx
annual mean record, and compares against the entire 20th
century instrumental record (1xxx xxxx xxxx), as well as with
MBH99 and its uncertainties.
Suppose that Esper et al is indeed representative of the
fullNorthern Hemisphere annual mean, as MBH99
purports to be. To the extent that differences emerge
between the two in assuming such a scaling, I interpret
them as differences which exist due to the fact that the
extratropical Northern Hemisphere series and full
Northern Hemisphere series likely did not co-vary in the
past the same way they co-vary in the 20th century (when
both are driven predominantly, in a relative sense, by
anthropogenic forcing, rather than natural forcing and
internal variability). What the plot shows is quite
remarkable. Scaled in this way, there is remarkably little
difference between Esper et al and MBH99 in the first
place (the two reconstructions are largely within the error
estimates of MBH99!)!, but moreover, where they do
differ, this could be explainable in terms of patterns of
enhanced mid-latitude continental response that were
discussed, for example, in Shindell et al (2001) in
Science last December. So I think this plot says a lot. Its
say that there are some statistically significant
differences, but certainly no grounds to use Esper et al to
contradict MBH99 or IPCC '2001 as, sadly, I believe at
least one of the published pieces tacitly appears to want
to do.
It is shame that such a plot, which I think is a far more
meaningful comparison of the two records, was not
shown in either Esper et al or the Briffa & Osborn
commentary. I've always given the group of you adequate
opportunity for commentary on anything we're about to
publish in Nature or Science. I am saddened that many of
my colleagues (and, I have always liked to think friends)
didn't affort me the same opportunity before this all
erupted in our face. It could have been easily avoided.
But that's water under the bridge.

>

Finally, before any more back-and-forths on this, I want
to make sure that everyone involved understands that
none of this was in any way ever meant to be personal, at
least not on my part (and if it ever has, at least on my
part, seemed that way, than I offer my apologies--it was
never intended that way). This is completely about the
"science". To the extent that I (and/or others) feel that the
science has been mis-represented in places, however, I personally
will work very hard to make sure that a more balanced view is
available to the community. Especially because the implications
are so great in this case. This is what I sought to do w/ the NYT
piece and my NPR interview, and that is what I've sought to do
(and Malcolm to, as far as I'm concerned) with the letter to
Science. Being a bit sloppy w/ wording, and omission, etc. is
something we're all guilty of at times. But I do consider it
somewhat unforgivable when it is obvious how that sloppiness can
be exploited. And you all know exactly what I'm talking about!
So, in short, I think are some fundamental issues over
which we're in disagreement, and where those exist, I will
not shy away from pointing them out. But I hope that is
not mis-interpreted as in any way personal.
I hope that suffices,

>

Mike
p.s. It seemed like an omission to not cc in Peck and
Scott Rutherford on this exchange, so I've done that. I
hope nobody minds this addition...
At 10:57 AM 4/11/xxx xxxx xxxx, Edward Cook wrote:
Hi Mike and Malcolm,
I have received the letter that you sent to Science
and will respond to it here first in some detail and
later in edited and condensed form in Science.
Since much of what you comment and criticize on
has been disseminated to a number of people in
your (Mike's) somewhat inflammatory earlier
emails, I am also sending this lengthy reply out to
everyone on that same email list, save those at
Science. I hadn't responded in detail before, but
do so now because your criticisms will soon be in
the public domain. However, I am not attaching
your letter to Science to this email since that is
not yet in the public domain. It is up to you to
send out your submitted letter to everyone if you
wish.
I must say at the beginning that some parts of
your letter to Science are as "flawed" as your
claims about Esper et al. (hereafter ECS). The
Briffa/Osborn perspectives piece points out an
important scaling issue that indeed needs further
examination. However, to claim as you do that
they show that the ECS 40-year low-pass
temperature reconstruction is "flawed" begs the
question: "flawed" by how much? It is not at all
clear that scaling the annually resolved RCS
chronology to annually resolved instrumental
temperatures first before smoothing is the correct
way to do it. The ECS series was never created to
examine annual, or even decadal, time-scale
temperature variability. Rather, as was clearly
indicated in the paper, it was created to show how
one can preserve multi-centennial climate
variability in certain long tree-ring records, as a
refutation of Broecker's truly "flawed" essay. As
ECS showed in their paper (Table 1), the high-
frequency correlations with NH mean annual
temperatures after 20-year high-pass filtering is
only 0.15. That result was expected and it makes
no meaningful difference if one uses only extra-
tropical NH temperature data. So, while the
amplitude of the temperature-scaled 40-year low-
pass ECS series might be on the high end (but
still plausible given the gridded borehole
temperature record shown in Briffa/Osborn),
scaling on the annually resolved data first would
probably have the opposite effect of excessively

> reducing the amplitude. I am willing to accept an

intermediate value, but probably not low enough
to satisfy you. Really, the more important result
from ECS is the enhanced pattern of multi-
centennial variability in the NH extra-tropics over
the past 1100 years. We can argue about the
amplitude later, but the enhanced multi-centennial
variability can not be easily dismissed. I should
also point out, again, that you saw Fig. 3 in ECS
BEFORE it was even submitted to Science and
never pointed out the putative scaling "flaw" to
me at that time.
With regards to the issue of the late 20th century
warming, the fact that I did not include some
reference to or plot of the up-to-date instrumental
temperature data (cf. Briffa/Osborn) is what I
regard as a "sin of omission". What I said was
that the estimated temperatures during the MWP
in ECS "approached" those in the 20th century
portion of that record up to 1990. I don't consider
the use of "approached" as an egregious
overstatement. But I do agree with you that I
should have been a bit more careful in my
wording there. As you know, I have publicly
stated that I never intended to imply that the
MWP was as warm as the late 20th century (e.g.,

> my New York Times interview). However, it is a

bit of overkill to state twice in the closing
sentences of the first two paragraphs of your
letter that the ECS results do not refute the
unprecedented late 20th century warming. I
would suggest that once is enough.
ECS were also very clear about the extra-tropical
nature of their data. So, what you say in your
letter about the reduced amplitude in your series
coming from the tropics, while perhaps worth
pointing out again, is beating a dead horse.
However, I must say that the "sin of omission" in
the Briffa/Osborn piece concerning the series
shown in their plot is a bit worrying. As they say
in the data file of series used in their plot (and in
Keith's April 5 email response to you),
Briffa/Osborn only used your land temperature
estimates north of 20 degrees and recalibrated the
mean of those estimates to the same domain of
land-only instrumental temperatures using the
same calibration period for all of the other non-
borehole series in the same way. I would have
preferred it if they had used your data north of
30N to make the comparisons a bit more one-to-
one. However, I still think that their results are
interesting. In particular, they reproduce much of
the reduced multi-centennial temperature
variability seen in your complete NH
reconstruction. So, if the amplitude of scaled
ECS multi-centennial variability is far too high
(as you would apparently suggest), it appears that
it is also too low in your estimates for the NH
extra-tropics north of 20N. I think that we have
to stop being so aggressive in defending our
series and try to understand the strengths and
weaknesses of each in order to improve them.
That is the way that science is supposed to work.
I must admit to being really irritated over the
criticism of the ECS tree-ring data standardized
using the RCS method. First of all, ECS
acknowledged up front the declining available
data prior to 1200 and its possible effect on
interpreting an MWP in the mean record. ECS
also showed bootstrap confidence intervals for
the mean of the RCS chronologies and showed
where the chronologies drop out. Even allowing
for the reduction in the number of represented
sites before 1400 (ECS Fig. 2d), and the
reduction in overall sample size (ECS Fig. 2b),
there is still some evidence for significantly
above average growth during two intervals that
can be plausibly assigned to the MWP. Of course

> we would like to have had all 14 series cover the

past 1xxx xxxx xxxxyears. This doesn't mean that we
can't usefully examine the data in the more
weakly replicated intervals. In any case, the
replication in the MWP of the ECS chronology is
at least as good as in other published tree-ring
estimates of large-scale temperatures (e.g., NH
extra-tropical) covering the past 1000+ years. It
also includes more long tree-ring records from the
NH temperate latitudes than ever before. So to
state that "this is a perilous basis for an estimate
of temperature on such a large geographic scale"
is disingenuous, especially when it is unclear how
many millennia-long series are contributing the
majority of the temperature information in the
Mann/Bradley/Hughes (MBH) reconstruction
prior to AD 1400. Let's be balanced here.
I basically agree with the closing paragraph of
your letter. The ECS record was NEVER
intended to refute MBH. It was intended, first
and foremost, to refute Broecker's essay in
Science that unfairly attacked tree rings. To this
extent, ECS succeeded very well. The
comparison of ECS with MBH was a logical
thing to do given that it has been accepted by the

> IPCC as the benchmark reconstruction of NH

annual temperature variability and change over
the past millennium. Several other papers have
made similar comparisons between MBH and
other even more geographically restricted
estimates of past temperature. So, I don't
apologize in the slightest for doing so in ECS.
The correlations in Table 2 between ECS and
MBH were primarily intended to demonstrate the
probable large-scale, low-frequency temperature
signal in ECS independent of explicitly
calibrating the individual RCS chronologies
before aggregating them. The results should
actually have pleased you because, for the xxx xxxx xxxx
year band, ECS and MBH have correlations of
0.60 to 0.68, depending on the period used.
Given that ECS is based on a great deal of new
data not used in MBH, this result validates to a
reasonable degree the temperature signal in MBH
in the xxx xxxx xxxxyear band over the past 1000 years.
Given the incendiary and sometimes quite rude
emails that came out at the time when ECS and
Briffa/Osborn were published, I could also go
into the whole complaint about how the review
process at Science was "flawed". I will only say
that this is a very dangerous game to get into and
complaints of this kind can easily cut both ways.
I will submit an appropriately edited and
condensed version of this reply to Science.
Regards,
Ed
--
=================================
Dr. Edward R. Cook
Doherty Senior Scholar
Tree-Ring Laboratory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964 USA
Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
=================================
_____________________________________________
__________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_____________________________________________
__________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
7770FAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
[1]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.sht
ml
Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:esper-
scaledcompare1980.jpg (JPEG/JVWR) (0008FDE3)
--
=================================
Dr. Edward R. Cook
Doherty Senior Scholar
Tree-Ring Laboratory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964 USA
Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
=================================

> ____________________________________________________

___________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
____________________________________________________
___________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (434)
xxx xxxx xxxx
[2]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

Malcolm Hughes
Professor of Dendrochronology
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
xxx xxxx xxxx
fax xxx xxxx xxxx

--
==================================
Dr. Edward R. Cook
Doherty Senior Scholar
Tree-Ring Laboratory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964 USA
Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
==================================

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
[3]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
[4]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.[5]shtml

References

1. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.sht
2. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
3. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0
4. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
5. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

Original Filename: 1018889093.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Ed Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Your letter to Science
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:44:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, esper@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

HI Tim,
Thanks for your message. Yes, you guys have us beat on the early monday end of things!
Your points are all taken. I think we all agree there is much work left to be done, more
than enough for all of us to continue to be involved in constructive collaboration, etc.
Scott and I, for example, are almost done writing up the work based on your visit w/ us
last year, and will send the initial draft on to you, Keith, and the others involved in the
near future. It will be a good chance to try to address a lot of these questions in an
article of adequate length to discuss the nuances that unfortunately cannot be addressed in
a shorter piece.
I also appreciate your more detailed comments about the comparisons, etc. Your points are
all reasonable ones. We can maintain an honest difference about how well those points were
conveyed in the Science piece (for example, you can imagine how the statement in your piece
"This record has a smaller amplitude of century-to-century variability, and is consistently
at or near the upper limit of alternate records produced by other researchers" might indeed
have been interpreted as setting MBH99 apart as, in your words, an "outlier").
We have good reason to believe that our reconstruction *will* in fact nderestimate
extratropical temperature means but far less so full globe/hemisphere-means prior to the
18th century because the basis functions that primarily set the extratropics apart from the
full hemispheric patterns (e.g., NAO type patterns and other anomaly patterns largely
carried by EOFs #2 and #3) start to drop out from our basis set prior to the 18th century,
while the pattern that best resolves the full global and/or hemispheric mean (with note
from MBH98, particularly large loadings primarily in the tropics and subtropics) still
remains. That is why we have never published an *extratropical* temperature reconstruction
prior to the 18th century. I would be happy to discuss this point with you and Keith and
others in more detail. Thus, I have compared Esper et al w/ our records in the manner
described in my previous email, which I think allows us to diagnose the extent to which
differing high-latitude and full-hemispheric patterns may, at times, explain the somewhat
modest differences between the records when similarly scaled to the full hemispheric
1xxx xxxx xxxxmean, and always, within the context of the diagnosed uncertainties. There is no
guarentee, as you say, that the uncertainties are correct, but I personally believe they'll
stand up over time. You can call me on this 10 years from now, and somebody will owe
somebody a beer...
In any case, I hope and fully expect we can all continue to all be engaged in constructive
interaction & hopefully continued collaboration. It will require some sensitivity on all
our part to the larger issues surrounding our work, and the way it gets presented to the
broader community, but I don't think that should be all that difficult.
I look forward to these more constructive interactions. I'll do my best to foster them,
Mike
At 01:57 PM 4/15/02 +0100, Tim Osborn wrote:

Dear all,
well, the time zone may let you have the last word before the weekend, but we can get
the first word in on a Monday morning!
At 22:35 12/04/02, Michael E. Mann wrote:

In keeping w/ the spirit of Tom's and Keith's emails, I wanted to stress, before we all
break for the weekend, that this is ultimately about the science, its not personal. If
my comments seemed to assail e.g. Keith's motives or integrity, etc. I believe that they
were misunderstood (as I tried to clarify that in my previous message), but I can see
that there was a potential for misunderstanding of my message (precision in wording is
very important) given the high levels of sensitivity in this debate. So I wanted to
leave no uncertainty about that. And of course, I very much apologize to Keith (and Tim)
if they took them my comments that way. They, again, were most decidedly not intended
that way.

Thanks for clarifying that, Mike. I think that both Keith and I interpreted your
earlier e-mail as being more critical of us than you actually meant it to be.
Most issues surrounding the recent Esper et al. and Briffa & Osborn pieces seem to have
been covered adequately already. There are just a couple of issues on which I'd like to
add a few comments, hopefully clarifying the situation rather than opening up more
avenues for debate.
The first relates to the purpose and style of the Briffa & Osborn piece. Perspectives
are brief, non-technical and not peer-reviewed. Our instructions were: "The Perspective
should provide an overview of recent research in the field and explain to the general
reader why the work is particularly exciting." Is it any surprise then that we should
focus on the new insights provided by the Esper et al. work, and that it suggests a
different climate history than earlier work? And that the constraints of the
perspectives format (in terms of length, audience and style) prevented us from listing
ALL the caveats and uncertainties related to this and earlier reconstructions and that
might be of relevance to their intercomparison? I don't think it is surprising, nor do
I think we should be criticised for it.
Moreover, despite the constraints of the perspectives format, I think we were very
careful with our wording to avoid misleading the reader. The reference to the IPCC, for
example, was not at all sloppy - the opposite, in fact, since it was very carefully
worded: the IPCC Synthesis Report is referred to, rather than the full TAR, and it is
quite true that there is a focus on the reconstruction of Mann et al. in the former. As
Mike says, IPCC conclusions were based on other work too. But I'd guess that many of
the readers of our perspective won't have read the full IPCC report, so we thought it
valid to focus on the difference between the new work and that shown in the Synthesis
Report (which more will have seen). To do this is certainly not unfair to the IPCC. It
would only have been unfair if we had implied that the IPCC had ignored this new work -
but of course we weren't doing that, because how could one expect the TAR to consider
work that is published a year after the TAR itself? We were similarly careful with our
wording in our brief mention of the MWP, by saying it is "more pronounced" in Esper et
al. - this doesn't mean it is warmer than the others (and thus has no implications for
the IPCC conclusion of recent unusual warmth), rather it is pronounced because it is
followed by stronger cooling.
The second issue is our re-calibration of the reconstructions. While it hasn't been
explicitly stated, I get the impression that this is considered by some to be a poor
thing to do. The particular re-calibration we do has a number of effects, including
making the Mann et al. reconstruction appear more consistently at the top of the range
of alternatives. But please let me assure you (Mike, Ray and Malcolm) that the reason
for re-calibrating the records is definitely *not* to make your record appear as an
outlier, and I hope you believe me. Indeed, in Jones, Osborn & Briffa (2001: Science
292, xxx xxxx xxxx) we showed various NH records *without* applying our re-calibration.
We produced our first comparison of records for an earlier Science perspectives piece in
1999 (Briffa & Osborn, 1999) and thought it would be useful to do a re-calibration to
remove some of the reasons for inter-reconstruction differences (which can be due to:
different proxy data, different statistical methods, different calibration target and
different calibration period). The latter two reasons were removed by re-calibrating
against a common target series and over a common period. We updated this in Briffa et
al. (2001) and acknowledged that the target series (in terms of its spatial and seasonal
definition) may not be optimal in all cases. Indeed, it may be especially sub-optimal
for Mann et al., because their reconstruction approach combines the proxy records to
optimally reconstruct full NH, annual mean T (whereas we have selected land north of
20N, warm-season T as our target for the recalibration). Despite this, we felt
justified in doing the recalibration because the Mann et al. series still outperformed
the others in terms of its correlation with the instrumental record over the calibration
period! In our latest piece, we have updated the intercomparison in two ways (as well
as including new series): (i) we took the spatially-resolved gridded reconstructions of
Mann et al. and extracted only land boxes north of 20N; and (ii) we used annual, not
warm-season, temperature as the target. The first of these (as explained by Keith and I
in an earlier e-mail, which is repeated below because it didn't get sent to all of you
firs time round) deals with all the points raised by Mike about tropical versus
extratropical differences. I would again argue that we were not sloppy, because these
changes to our intercomparison were carefully thought out.
So that explains what we have done and why. There is some sensitivity, clearly, to
calibration choices, which implies to me that the true uncertainty ranges are probably
larger than those estimated solely from the statistical properties of calibration
residuals (as used by Briffa et al., and [I think] by Mann et al.). There is clearly
more progress to be made!
Best regards to you all
Tim
------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 17:17:55 +0100
To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,rkerr@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,bhanson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Briffa & Osborn piece
Cc: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Dear Mike, (and interested colleagues)
Given the list of people to whom you have chosen to circulate your message(s), we
thought we should make a short, somewhat formal, response here. I am happy to reserve
my informal response until we are face to face! We did not respond earlier because we
had more pressing tasks to deal with. This is not the place to go into a long or
over-detailed response to all of your comments but a few brief remarks might help to
clear up a couple of misconceptions.
You consider our commentary on Ed and Jan's paper
"more flawed than even the paper itself"
on the basis that scaling the relationship between full Northern Hemisphere and
extratropical Northern Hemisphere is *much* more problematic than even any of the
seasonal issues we discuss. In fact we did not do this. The curve labelled Mann99 in
our figure was, in fact, based on the average of only the land areas, north of 20
degrees N, extracted from your spatially-resolved reconstructions. We then scaled it by
calibration against the instrumental annual temperatures from the same region. This is,
just as you stress in your comments on the Esper et al. paper, what should have been
done. We think that this single point addresses virtually of all your concerns. We
can, of course, argue about what this means for the pre-1400 part of your
reconstruction, when only 1 EOF was reconstructed, but the essential message is that we
did our best to exclude the tropics (and the oceans too!) from your series so that it
could more readily be compared with the other records.
The fact that we have used only the extra-tropical land from your data is not clear from
the text, so we can see why you may not have appreciated this, but we think you will
concede that this fact negates much of what you say and that we acted "more correctly"
than you realised. Blame *Science* for being so mean with their space allocation if you
want! Remember that this was an unrefereed piece and we felt justified in concentrating
on one issue; that of the importance of the method of scaling and its effect on apparent
"absolute" reconstruction levels. In our draft, we went on to say that this was crucial
for issues of simple model sensitivity studies and climate detection, citing the work of
Tom Crowley and Myles Allen, but this fell foul of the editor's knife.
You also express concerns about the calibration of Esper et al. (e.g., you say "if the
authors had instead used the actual (unsmoothed) instrumental record for the
extratropical northern hemisphere to scale their record, their reconstruction would be
much closer to MBH99").
This point is wholly consistent with our discussion in the perspective piece, and indeed
we show that in absolute terms the records are closer when Esper et al. is calibrated
using unsmoothed data but since the variance is also reduced, the significance of the
differences may be just as high.
Finally, we have to say that we do not feel constrained in what we say to the media or
write in the scientific or popular press, by what the sceptics will say or do with our
results. We can only strive to do our best and address the issues honestly. Some
"sceptics" have their own dishonest agenda - we have no doubt of that. If you believe
that I, or Tim, have any other objective but to be open and honest about the
uncertainties in the climate change debate, then I am disappointed in you also.
Best regards
Keith (and Tim)

------------------------------------------
Dr Timothy J Osborn | phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
Senior Research Associate | fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
Climatic Research Unit | e-mail: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
School of Environmental Sciences | web-site:
University of East Anglia __________| [1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
Norwich NR4 7TJ | sunclock:
UK | [2]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: (4xxx xxxx xxxx
[3]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.[4]shtml

References

1. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
2. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm
3. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
4. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

Original Filename: 1109021312.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: "raymond s. bradley" <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Malcolm Hughes" <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>


Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use
this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere
rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don't realise that Moberg et al used the
Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed
that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn't bother
with that. Also ignored Francis' comment about all the other series looking similar
to MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick.
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !

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Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:40:05 +0000
To: p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO
DISCLOSE SECRET DATA

Subject: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
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PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This should have produced a healthy scientific debate. Instead, Mr. Mann tried
to shut down debate by refusing to disclose the mathematical algorithm by which
he arrived at his conclusions. All the same, Mr. Mann was forced to publish a
retraction of some of his initial data, and doubts about his statistical methods
have since grown.
--The Wall Street Journal, 18 February 2005
But maybe we are in that much trouble. The WSJ highlights what Regaldo and McIntyre
says is Mann's resistance or outright refusal to provide to inquiring minds his
data, all details of his statistical analysis, and his code. So this is what I
say to Dr. Mann and others expressing deep concern over peer review: give up your
data, methods and code freely and with a smile on your face.
--Kevin Vranes, Science Policy, 18 February 2005
Mann's work doesn't meet that definition [of science], and those who use Mann's
curve in their arguments are not making a scientific argument. One of Pournelle's
Laws states "You can prove anything if you can make up your data." I will now add
another Pournelle's Law: "You can prove anything if you can keep your algorithms
secret."
--Jerry Pournelle, 18 February 2005
The time has come to question the IPCC's status as the near-monopoly source of
information and advice for its member governments. It is probably futile to propose
reform of the present IPCC process. Like most bureaucracies, it has too much momentum
and its institutional interests are too strong for anyone realistically to suppose
that it can assimilate more diverse points of view, even if more scientists and
economists were keen to join up. The rectitude and credibility of the IPCC could be
best improved not through reform, but through competition.
--Steven F. Hayward, The American Enterprise Institute, 15 February 2005
(1) HOCKEY STICK ON ICE
The Wall Street Journal, 18 February 2005
(2) SCIENCE AND OPEN ALGORITHMS: "YOU CAN PROVE ANYTHING WITH SECRET DATA AND
ALGORITHMS"
Jerry Pournell, 18 February 2005
(3) OPEN SEASON ON HOCKEY AND PEER REVIEW
Science Policy, 18 February 2005
(4) CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE: TIME FOR TEAM "B"?
The American Enterprise Institute, 15 February 2005
(5) BRING THE PROXIES UP TO DATE!
Climate Audit, 20 February 2005
(6) CARELESS SCIENCE COSTS LIVES
The Guardian, 18 February 2005
(7) RE: MORE TROUBLE FOR CLIMATE MODELS
Helen Krueger <hkrueger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
(8) HOW TO HANDLE ASTEROID 2004 MN4
Jens Kieffer-Olsen <dstdba@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
(9) AND FINALLY: EUROPE FURTHER FALLING BEHIND IN TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH
EU Observer, 10 February 2005
==================
(1) HOCKEY STICK ON ICE
The Wall Street Journal, 18 February 2005
[1]http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB110869271828758608-IdjeoNmlah4n5yta4GHaqyIm4
,00.html
On Wednesday National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the season, and
we guess that's a loss. But this week also brought news of something else that's been
put on ice. We're talking about the "hockey stick."
Just so we're clear, this hockey stick isn't a sports implement; it's a scientific
graph. Back in the late 1990s, American geoscientist Michael Mann published a chart that
purported to show average surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere over the past
1,000 years. The chart showed relatively minor fluctuations in temperature over the
first 900 years, then a sharp and continuous rise over the past century, giving it a
hockey-stick shape.
Mr. Mann's chart was both a scientific and political sensation. It contradicted a body
of scientific work suggesting a warm period early in the second millennium, followed by
a "Little Ice Age" starting in the 14th century. It also provided some visually
arresting scientific support for the contention that fossil-fuel emissions were the
cause of higher temperatures. Little wonder, then, that Mr. Mann's hockey stick appears
five times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's landmark 2001 report on
global warming, which paved the way to this week's global ratification -- sans the U.S.,
Australia and China -- of the Kyoto Protocol.
Yet there were doubts about Mr. Mann's methods and analysis from the start. In 1998,
Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
published a paper in the journal Climate Research, arguing that there really had been a
Medieval warm period. The result: Messrs. Soon and Baliunas were treated as heretics and
six editors at Climate Research were made to resign.
Still, questions persisted. In 2003, Stephen McIntyre, a Toronto minerals consultant and
amateur mathematician, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at Canada's University of
Guelph, jointly published a critique of the hockey stick analysis. Their conclusion: Mr.
Mann's work was riddled with "collation errors, unjustifiable truncations of
extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect
calculations of principal components, and other quality control defects." Once these
were corrected, the Medieval warm period showed up again in the data.
This should have produced a healthy scientific debate. Instead, as the Journal's Antonio
Regalado reported Monday, Mr. Mann tried to shut down debate by refusing to disclose the
mathematical algorithm by which he arrived at his conclusions. All the same, Mr. Mann
was forced to publish a retraction of some of his initial data, and doubts about his
statistical methods have since grown. Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada
(a government agency) notes that Mr. Mann's method "preferentially produces hockey
sticks when there are none in the data." Other reputable scientists such as Berkeley's
Richard Muller and Hans von Storch of Germany's GKSS Center essentially agree.
We realize this may all seem like so much academic nonsense. Yet if there really was a
Medieval warm period (we draw no conclusions), it would cast some doubt on the
contention that our SUVs and air conditioners, rather than natural causes, are to blame
for apparent global warming.
There is also the not-so-small matter of the politicization of science: If climate
scientists feel their careers might be put at risk by questioning some orthodoxy, the
inevitable result will be bad science. It says something that it took two non-climate
scientists to bring Mr. Mann's errors to light.
But the important point is this: The world is being lobbied to place a huge economic bet
-- as much as $150 billion a year -- on the notion that man-made global warming is real.
Businesses are gearing up, at considerable cost, to deal with a new regulatory
environment; complex carbon-trading schemes are in the making. Shouldn't everyone look
very carefully, and honestly, at the science before we jump off this particular cliff?
Copyright 2005, The Wall Street Journal
=============
(2) SCIENCE AND OPEN ALGORITHMS: "YOU CAN PROVE ANYTHING WITH SECRET DATA AND
ALGORITHMS"
Jerry Pournell, 18 February 2005
[2]http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view349.html#hockeystick
Science and Open Algorithms: You can prove anything with secret data and algorithms.
There is a long piece on the global "hockey stick" in today's Wall Street Journal that
explains something I didn't understand: Mann, who generated the "hockey stick" curve
purporting to show that the last century was unique in all recorded history with its
sharp climb in temperature, has released neither the algorithm that generated his curve
nor the data on which it was based.
I had refrained from commenting on the "hockey stick" because I couldn't understand how
it was derived. I've done statistical analysis and prediction from uncertainty much of
my life. My first job in aerospace was as part of the Human Factors and Reliability
Group at Boeing, where we were expected to deal with such matters as predicting
component failures, and deriving maintenance schedules (replace it before it fails, but
not so long before it fails that the costs including the cost of the maintenance crew
and the costs of taking the airplane out of service are prohibitive) and other such
matters. I used to live with Incomplete Gamma Functions and other complex integrals; and
I could not for the life of me understand how Mann derived his famous curve. Now I know:
he hasn't told anyone. He says that telling people how he generated it would be
tantamount to giving in to his critics.
More on this after my walk, but the one thing we may conclude for sure is that this is
not science. His curve has been distributed as part of the Canadian government's
literature on why Canada supports Kyoto, and is said to have been influential in causing
the "Kyoto Consensus" so it is certainly effective propaganda; but IT IS NOT SCIENCE.
Science deals with repeatability and openness. When I took Philosophy of Science from
Gustav Bergmann at the University of Iowa a very long time ago, our seminar came to a
one-sentence "practical definition" of science: Science is what you can put in a letter
to a colleague and he'll get the same results you did. Now I don't claim that as
original for it wasn't even me who came up with it in the seminar; but I do claim
Bergmann liked that formulation, and it certainly appealed to me, and I haven't seen a
better one-sentence practical definition of science. Mann's work doesn't meet that
definition, and those who use Mann's curve in their arguments are not making a
scientific argument.
One of Pournelle's Laws states "You can prove anything if you can make up your data." I
will now add another Pournelle's Law: "You can prove anything if you can keep your
algorithms secret."
=============
(3) OPEN SEASON ON HOCKEY AND PEER REVIEW
Science Policy, 18 February 2005
[3]http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000355open_seaso
n_on_hocke.html
By Kevin Vranes
The recent 2/14 WSJ article ("Global Warring..." by Antonio Regaldo) addresses the
debate that most readers of this site are well familiar with: the Mann et al. hockey
stick. The WSJ is still asking - and trying to answer - the basic questions: hockey
stick or no hockey stick? But the background premise of the article, stated explicitly
and implicitly throughout, is that it was the hockey stick that led to Kyoto and other
climate policy. Is it?
I think it's fair to say that to all of us in the field of climatology, the notion that
Kyoto is based on the Mann curve is utter nonsense. If a climatologist, or a policy
advisor charged with knowing the science well enough to make astute recommendations to
his/her boss, relied solely on the Mann curve to prove definitively the existence of
anthropogenic warming, then we're in deeper trouble than anybody realizes. (This is
essentially what Stephan Ramstorf writes in a 1/27 RealClimate post.) And although it's
easy to believe that national and international policy can hinge on single graphs, I
hope we give policy makers more credit than that.
But maybe we are in that much trouble. The WSJ highlights what Regaldo and McIntyre says
is Mann's resistance or outright refusal to provide to inquiring minds his data, all
details of his statistical analysis, and his code. The WSJ's anecdotal treatment of the
subject goes toward confirming what I've been hearing for years in climatology circles
about not just Mann, but others collecting original climate data.
As concerns Mann himself, this is especially curious in light of the recent RealClimate
posts (link and link) in which Mann and Gavin Schmidt warn us about peer review and the
limits therein. Their point is essentially that peer review is limited and can be much
less than thorough. One assumes that they are talking about their own work as well as
McIntyre's, although they never state this. Mann and Schmidt go to great lengths in
their post to single out Geophysical Research Letters. Their post then seems a bit
ironic, as GRL is the journal in which the original Mann curve was published (1999, vol
26., issue 6, p. 759), an article which is now receiving much attention as being flawed
and under-reviewed. (For that matter, why does Table 1 in Mann et al. (1999) list many
chronologies in the Southern Hemisphere while the rest of the paper promotes a Northern
Hemisphere reconstruction? Legit or not, it's a confusing aspect of the paper that
should never have made it past peer review.)
Of their take on peer review, I couldn't agree more. In my experience, peer review is
often cursory at best. So this is what I say to Dr. Mann and others expressing deep
concern over peer review: give up your data, methods and code freely and with a smile on
your face. That is real peer review. A 12 year-old hacker prodigy in her grandparents'
basement should have as much opportunity to check your work as a "semi-retired Toronto
minerals consultant." Those without three letters after their name can be every bit as
intellectually qualified, and will likely have the time for careful review that typical
academic reviewers find lacking.
Specious analysis of your work will be borne out by your colleagues, and will enter the
debate with every other original work. Your job is not to prevent your critics from
checking your work and potentially distorting it; your job is to continue to publish
insightful, detailed analyses of the data and let the community decide. You can be part
of the debate without seeming to hinder access to it.
===============
(4) CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE: TIME FOR TEAM "B"?
The American Enterprise Institute, 15 February 2005
[4]http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21974/pub_detail.asp
By Steven F. Hayward
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is currently working on its fourth
assessment report. Despite the IPCC's noble intent to generate a scientific consensus, a
number of factors have compromised the research and drafting process, assuring that its
next assessment report will be just as controversial as previous reports in 1995 and
2001. Efforts to reform this large bureaucratic effort are unlikely to succeed. Perhaps
the time has come to consider competition as the means of checking the IPCC's monopoly
and generating more reliable climate science.
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) moves toward the release of its
fourth assessment report (fourth AR) in 2007, the case of Chris Landsea offers in
microcosm an example of why the IPCC's findings are going to have credibility problems.
Last month Landsea, a climate change scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), resigned as a participant in the producing the
report. Landsea had been a chapter author and reviewer for the IPCC's second assessment
report in 1995 and the third in 2001, and he is a leading expert on hurricanes and
related extreme weather phenomena. He had signed on with the IPCC to update the state of
current knowledge on Atlantic hurricanes for the fourth report. In an open letter,
Landsea wrote that he could no longer in good conscience participate in a process that
is "being motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and is "scientifically unsound."[1]
Landsea's resignation was prompted by an all too familiar occurrence: The lead author of
the fourth AR's chapter on climate observations, Kevin Trenberth, participated in a
press conference that warned of increasing hurricane activity as a result of global
warming.[2] It is common to hear that man-made global warming represents the "consensus"
of science, yet the use of hurricanes and cyclones as a marker of global warming
represents a clear-cut case of the consensus being roundly ignored. Both the second and
third IPCC assessments concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the
hurricane record. Moreover, most climate models predict future warming will have only a
small effect--if any--on hurricane strength. "It is beyond me," Landsea wrote, "why my
colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane
activity has been due to global warming."[3] Landsea's critique goes beyond a fit of
pique at the abuse of his area of expertise. The IPCC, he believes, has become
thoroughly politicized, and is unresponsive to criticism. "When I have raised my
concerns to the IPCC leadership," Landsea wrote, "their response was simply to dismiss
my concerns."[4]
Landsea's frustration is not an isolated experience. MIT physicist Richard Lindzen,
another past IPCC author who is not participating in the fourth report, has written: "My
experiences over the past 16 years have led me to the discouraging conclusion that we
are dealing with the almost insoluble interaction of an iron triangle with an iron rice
bowl." (Lindzen's "iron triangle" consists of activists misusing science to get the
attention of the news media and politicians; the "iron rice bowl" is the parallel
phenomenon where scientists exploit the activists' alarm to increase research funding
and attention for the issue.[5]) And Dr. John Zillman, one of Australia's leading
climate scientists, is another ex-IPCC participant who believes the IPCC has become
"cast more in the model of supporting than informing policy development."[6]
And when the IPCC is not ignoring its responsible critics like Landsea and Lindzen, it
is demonizing them. Not long ago the IPCC's chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, compared
eco-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg to Hitler. "What is the difference between Lomborg's view of
humanity and Hitler's?" Pachauri asked in a Danish newspaper. "If you were to accept
Lomborg's way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing."[7] Lomborg's
sin was merely to follow the consensus practice of economists in applying a discount to
present costs for future benefits, and comparing the range of outcomes with other world
problems alongside climate change. It is hard to judge what is worse: Pachauri's
appalling judgment in resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum, or his abysmal ignorance of
basic economics. In either case, it is hard to have much confidence in the policy advice
the IPCC might have. [...]
Time for "Team B"?
The time has come to question the IPCC's status as the near-monopoly source of
information and advice for its member governments. It is probably futile to propose
reform of the present IPCC process. Like most bureaucracies, it has too much momentum
and its institutional interests are too strong for anyone realistically to suppose that
it can assimilate more diverse points of view, even if more scientists and economists
were keen to join up. The rectitude and credibility of the IPCC could be best improved
not through reform, but through competition....
FULL PAPER at [5]http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21974/pub_detail.asp
===========
(5) BRING THE PROXIES UP TO DATE!
Climate Audit, 20 February 2005
[6]http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=89#more-89
Steve McIntyre
I will make here a very simple suggestion: if IPCC or others want to use "multiproxy"
reconstructions of world temperature for policy purposes, stop using data ending in 1980
and bring the proxies up-to-date. Let's see how they perform in the warm 1990s - which
should be an ideal period to show the merit of the proxies. I do not believe that any
responsible policy-maker can base policy, even in part, on the continued use of obsolete
data ending in 1980, when the costs of bringing the data up-to-date is inconsequential
compared to Kyoto costs.
I would appreciate comments on this note as I think that I will pursue the matter with
policymakers.
For example, in Mann's famous hockey stick graph, as presented to policymakers and to
the public, the graph used Mann's reconstruction from proxies up to 1980 and
instrumental temperatures (here, as in other similar studies, using Jones' more lurid
CRU surface history rather than the more moderate increases shown by satellite
measurements). Usually (but not always), a different color is used for the instrumental
portion, but, from a promotional point of view, the juxtaposition of the two series
achieves the desired promotional effect. (In mining promotions, where there is
considerable community experience with promotional graphics and statistics, securities
commission prohibit the adding together of proven ore reserves and inferred ore reserves
- a policy which deserves a little reflection in the context of IPCC studies).
Last week, a brand new multiproxy study by European scientists [Moberg et al., 2005] was
published in Nature. On the very day of publication, I received an email from a
prominent scientist telling me that Mann's hockeystick was yesterday's news, that the
"community" had now "moved on" and so should I. That the "community" had had no
opportunity to verify Moberg's results, however meritorious they may finally appear,
seemed to matter not at all.
If you look at the proxy portion of the new Moberg graphic, you see nothing that would
be problematic for opponents of the hockey stick: it shows a striking Medieval Warm
Period (MWP), a cold Little Ice Age and 20th century warming not quite reaching MWP
levels by 1979, when the proxy portion of the study ends. (I'm in the process of
examining the individual proxies and the Moberg reconstruction is not without its own
imperfections.) In the presentation to the public - see the figure in the Nature article
itself, once again, there is the infamous splice between reconstruction by proxy (up to
1980) and the instrumental record thereafter (once again Jones' CRU record, rather than
the satellite record).
One of the first question that occurs to any civilian becoming familiar with these
studies (and it was one of my first questions) is: what happens to the proxies after
1980? Given the presumed warmth of the 1990s, and especially 1998 (the "warmest year in
the millennium"), you'd think that the proxy values would be off the chart. In effect,
the last 25 years have provided an ideal opportunity to validate the usefulness of
proxies and, especially the opportunity to test the confidence intervals of these
studies, put forward with such assurance by the multiproxy proponents. What happens to
the proxies used in MBH99 or Moberg et al [2005] or Crowley and Lowery [2000] in the
1990s and, especially, 1998?
This question about proxies after 1980 was posed by a civilian to Mann in December at
realclimate. Mann replied:
Most reconstructions only extend through about 1980 because the vast majority of
tree-ring, coral, and ice core records currently available in the public domain do not
extend into the most recent decades. While paleoclimatologists are attempting to update
many important proxy records to the present, this is a costly, and labor-intensive
activity, often requiring expensive field campaigns that involve traveling with heavy
equipment to difficult-to-reach locations (such as high-elevation or remote polar
sites). For historical reasons, many of the important records were obtained in the 1970s
and 1980s and have yet to be updated. [my bold]
Pause and think about this response. Think about the costs of Kyoto and then think again
about this answer. Think about the billions spent on climate research and then try to
explain to me why we need to rely on "important records" obtained in the 1970s. Far more
money has been spent on climate research in the last decade than in the 1970s. Why are
we still relying on obsolete proxy data?
As someone with actual experience in the mineral exploration business, which also
involves "expensive field campaigns that involve traveling with heavy equipment to
difficult-to-reach locations", I can assure readers that Mann's response cannot be
justified and is an embarrassment to the paleoclimate community. The more that I think
about it, the more outrageous is both the comment itself and the fact that no one seems
to have picked up on it.
It is even more outrageous when you look in detail at what is actually involved in
collecting the proxy data used in the medieval period in the key multiproxy studies. The
number of proxies used in MBH99 is from fewer than 40 sites (28 tree ring sites being
U.S. tree ring sites represented in 3 principal component series).
As to the time needed to update some of these tree ring sites, here is an excerpt from
Lamarche et al. [1984] on the collection of key tree ring cores from Sheep Mountain and
Campito Mountain, which are the most important indicators in the MBH reconstruction:
"D.A.G. [Graybill] and M.R.R. [Rose] collected tree ring samples at 3325 m on Mount
Jefferson, Toquima Range, Nevada and 11 August 1981. D.A.G. and M.R.R. collected samples
from 13 trees at Campito Mountain (3400 m) and from 15 trees at Sheep Mountain (3500 m)
on 31 October 1983."
Now to get to Campito Mountain and Sheep Mountain, they had to get to Bishop,
California, which is hardly "remote" even by Paris Hilton standards, and then proceed by
road to within a few hundred meters of the site, perhaps proceeding for some portion of
the journey on unpaved roads.
The picture below illustrates the taking of a tree ring core. While the equipment may
seem "heavy" to someone used only to desk work using computers, people in the mineral
exploration business would not regard this drill as being especially "heavy" and I
believe that people capable of operating such heavy equipment can be found, even in
out-of-the way places like Bishop, California. I apologize for the tone here, but it is
impossible for me not to be facetious.
There is only one relatively remote site in the entire MBH99 roster - the Quelccaya
glacier in Peru. Here, fortunately, the work is already done (although, needless to say,
it is not published.) This information was updated in 2003 by Lonnie Thompson and should
be adequate to update these series. With sufficient pressure from the U.S. National
Science Foundation, the data should be available expeditiously. (Given that Thompson has
not archived data from Dunde drilled in 1987, the need for pressure should not be
under-estimated.)
I realize that the rings need to be measured and that the field work is only a portion
of the effort involved. But updating 28 tree ring sites in the United States is not a
monumental enterprise nor would updating any of the other sites.
I've looked through lists of the proxies used in Jones et al. [1998], MBH99, Crowley and
Lowery [2000], Mann and Jones [2003], Moberg et al [2005] and see no obstacles to
bringing all these proxies up to date. The only sites that might take a little extra
time would be updating the Himalayan ice cores. Even here, it's possible that taking
very short cores or even pits would prove adequate for an update and this might prove
easier than one might be think. Be that as it may, any delays in updating the most
complicated location should not deter updating all the other locations.
As far as I'm concerned, this should be the first order of business for multiproxy
studies.
Whose responsibility is this? While the costs are trivial in the scheme of Kyoto, they
would still be a significant line item in the budget of a university department. I think
that the responsibility here lies with the U.S. National Science Foundation and its
equivalents in Canada and Europe. The responsibilities for collecting the proxy updates
could be divided up in a couple of emails and budgets established.
One other important aspect: right now the funding agencies fund academics to do the work
and are completely ineffective in ensuring prompt reporting. At best, academic practice
will tie up reporting of results until the publication of articles in an academic
journals, creating a delay right at the start. Even then, in cases like Thompson or
Jacoby, to whom I've referred elsewhere, the data may never be archived or only after
decades in the hands of the originator.
So here I would propose something more like what happens in a mineral exploration
program. When a company has drill results, it has to publish them through a press
release. It can't wait for academic reports or for its geologists to spin the results.
There's lots of time to spin afterwards. Good or bad - the results have to be made
public. The company has a little discretion so that it can release drill holes in
bunches and not every single drill hole, but the discretion can't build up too much
during an important program. Here I would insist that the proxy results be archived as
soon as they are produced - the academic reports and spin can come later. Since all
these sites have already been published, people are used to the proxies and the updates
will to a considerable extend speak for themselves.
What would I expect from such studies? Drill programs are usually a surprise and maybe
there's one here. My hunch is that the classic proxies will not show anywhere near as
"loud" a signal in the 1990s as is needed to make statements comparing the 1990s to the
Medieval Warm Period with any confidence at all. I've not surveyed proxies in the 1990s
(nor to my knowledge has anyone else), but I've started to look and many do not show the
expected "loud" signal e.g. some of the proxies posted up on this site such as Alaskan
tree rings, TTHH ring widths, and theories are starting to develop. But the discussions
so far do not explicit point out the effect of signal failure on the multiproxy
reconstruction project.
But this is only a hunch and the evidence could be otherwise. The point is this: there's
no need to speculate any further. It's time to bring the classic proxies up to date.
=============
(6) CARELESS SCIENCE COSTS LIVES
The Guardian, 18 February 2005
[7]http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1417224,00.html
Dick Taverne
In science, as in much of life, it is believed that you get what you pay for. According
to opinion polls, people do not trust scientists who work for industry because they only
care about profits, or government scientists because they suspect them of trying to
cover up the truth. Scientists who work for environmental NGOs are more highly regarded.
Because they are trying to save the planet, people are ready to believe that what they
say must be true. A House of Lords report, Science and Society, published in 2000,
agreed that motives matter. It argued that science and scientists are not value-free,
and therefore that scientists would command more trust "if they openly declare the
values that underpin their work".
It all sounds very plausible, but mostly it is wrong. Scientists with the best of
motives can produce bad science, just as scientists whose motives may be considered
suspect can produce good science. An obvious example of the first was Rachel Carson,
who, if not the patron saint, was at least the founding mother of modern
environmentalism. Her book The Silent Spring was an inspiring account of the damage
caused to our natural environment by the reckless spraying of pesticides, especially
DDT.
However, Carson also claimed that DDT caused cancer and liver damage, claims for which
there is no evidence but which led to an effective worldwide ban on the use of DDT that
is proving disastrous. Her motives were pure; the science was wrong. DDT is the most
effective agent ever invented for preventing insect-borne disease, which, according to
the US National Academy of Sciences and the WHO, prevented over 50 million human deaths
from malaria in about two decades. Although there is no evidence that DDT harms human
health, some NGOs still demand a worldwide ban for that reason. Careless science cost
lives.
Contrast the benefits that have resulted from the profit motive, a motive that is held
to be suspect by the public. Multinationals, chief villains in the demonology of
contemporary anti-capitalists, have developed antibiotics, vaccines that have eradicated
many diseases like smallpox and polio, genetically modified insulin for diabetics, and
plants such as GM insect-resistant cotton that have reduced the need for pesticides and
so increased the income and improved the health of millions of small cotton farmers. The
fact is that self-interest can benefit the public as effectively as philanthropy.
Motives are not irrelevant, and unselfish motives are rightly admired more than selfish
ones. There are numerous examples of misconduct by big companies, and we should examine
their claims critically and provide effective regulation to control abuses of power and
ensure the safety of their products. Equally, we should not uncritically accept the
claims of those who act from idealistic motives. NGOs inspired by the noble cause of
protecting our environment often become careless about evidence and exaggerate risks to
attract attention (and funds). Although every leading scientific academy has concluded
that GM crops are at least as safe as conventional foods, this does not stop Greenpeace
reiterating claims about the dangers of "Frankenfoods". Stephen Schneider, a
climatologist, publicly justified distortion of evidence: "Because we are not just
scientists but human beings as well ... we need to ... capture the public imagination
... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and
make little mention of any doubts we have."
But in the end motives are irrelevant to the validity of science. It does not matter if
a scientist wants to help mankind, get a new grant, win a Nobel prize or increase the
profits of her company. It does not matter whether a researcher works for Monsanto or
for Greenpeace. Results are no more to be trusted if the researcher declares his values
and confesses that he beats his wife, believes in God, or is an Arsenal supporter. What
matters is that the work has been peer-reviewed, that the findings are reproducible and
that they last. If they do, they are good science. If not, not. Science itself is
value-free. There are objective truths in science. We can now regard it as a fact that
the Earth goes rounds the sun and that Darwinism explains the evolution of species.
A look at the history of science makes it evident how irrelevant the values of
scientists are. Newton's passion for alchemy did not invalidate his discovery of the
laws of gravitation. To quote Professor Fox of Rutger's University: "How was it relevant
to Mendel's findings about peas that he was a white, European monk? They would have been
just as valid if Mendel had been a Spanish-speaking, lesbian atheist."

Original Filename: 1109087609.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Valerie Masson-Delmotte <Valerie.Masson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Hugues Goosse <hgs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: B parts
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:53:29 +0100
Reply-to: Valerie.Masson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, imprint-ssc@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, erick.larson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Beatriz Balino <beatriz.balino@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, loutre@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
Dear Eystein,

Congratulations for a very convincing draft.

Please find attached the suggestions by Hubertus Fischer and myself for
the parts B1 to B3.

Valerie.

</x-flowed>

Attachment Converted: "c:eudoraattachmasson54.vcf"

Original Filename: 1115843111.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: "Polychronis Tzedakis" <P.C.Tzedakis@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Rainer Zahn" <rainer.zahn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Thomas Stocker" <stocker@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Atte Korhola" <atte.korhola@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: RE: commission performance alpha 5
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:25:11 +0100
Cc: <Eystein.Jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <Imprint-partner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <beatriz.balino@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <atle.nesje@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <oyvind.lie@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <john.birks@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <Carin.Andersson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <trond.dokken@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <ulysses.ninnemann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <Astrid.Bardgard@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <richard.telford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Dear all,
First of all a big hand for Eystein and all those who put in so much time into this task. Very disheartening to hear the outcome.

I have muych sympathy with what Rainer Zahn has said, especially on the Brussels front and the client relationships that are cultivated with EU officials.

I think that in addition to a letter to the EU, I would suggest that perhaps an editorial in NAture or something similar, outlining the growing degree of scepticism amongst scientists regarding the transparency of the EU funding process might be in order.

Chronis Tzedakis


-----Original Message-----
From: Rainer Zahn [mailto:rainer.zahn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Wed 5/11/2005 2:47 PM
To: Thomas Stocker; Atte Korhola
Cc: Eystein.Jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; Imprint-partner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; beatriz.balino@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; atle.nesje@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; oyvind.lie@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; john.birks@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; Carin.Andersson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; trond.dokken@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; ulysses.ninnemann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; Astrid.Bardgard@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; richard.telford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: commission performance alpha 5

dear Eystein, dear Imprint consortium,

I am sure I will not make many friends with what follows below. Firstly, it
surely is sad and disheartening to see our proposal going down. and there
are many issues involved some of which have been named in the recent
emails. But then there are those issues left that have not been named but
which I consider relevant if we are to make progress on the EU FWP front.
Some of these issues may and will touch a personal nerve here and there,
but let's face some of the unpleasant realities much rather than sitting
back and keeping going with business as usual, a business that soon may go
out of existence.

First, I am not convinced that Imprint was the best we could have done. On
my side I was surprised to no small extent during our London meeting to see
that those from the modeling community and other groups present obviously
had no idea why our palaeo-component (a derivative of the planned ICON IP)
was part of Imprint, and they were not overly favourable to listen and
expand their views. So in a sense, even within our own consortium there
was, perhaps still is a lack of insight and understanding as to what a
palaeo-component is about and will have to offer. In the end I am now left
with the impression that ICON would have stood a good chance to survive on
its own.

Second, as a member of the Imprint consortium I still find it difficult
today to sort through this proposal and its various components, tasks,
topics, milestones, deliverables etc. Which only tells me how ever so more
difficult it must have been for outsiders i.e., reviewers to sift through
the bits and pieces and comprehend what this is about. But I also feel that
this has to do with the concept of IPs at large as it is not an easy task
to compose an IP consortium of the dimension and wide range of expertise
envisioned by the commission. The outcome of the whole process in my view
confirms the notion that the concept of IPs has fundamentally (and to a
large degree predictably) failed. This concept reflects a substantial lack
of insight on the side of those who were, presumably still are involved in
designing research policies in the commission about what science is about
and how it works. Those parties should not be where they are, and they
certainly should not be involved in setting up FWP7

This is what I have to say about our proposal.

As for the Commission's performance it is not my impression they are living
up to their own standards that they have set up for the quality of
proposals requested. In particular the proposal evaluation process is
ridiculous and lacks any degree of substance. For instance, the reviews
that I did receive in response to my RTN proposal (submitted last year) are
mediocre at best, meaningless and useless in detail, beyond anything I
would consider expert insight, simply a waste of time and tax payers'
money. They are an insult to anybody who did contribute to and put work and
effort into that proposal. As for the Impront proposal we now are faced
with the prospect that the only IP proposal, Millennium, that is competing
with Imprint from the outset was received more favourably than our own
proposal. With this I could live were it not for the fact that in
Millennium everything is named as a strategy and work plan that we were
being advised to not do. This speaks a language of its own and to me
reflects a fundamental lack of enthusiasm, professionalism and competence
with those who give advice and organize the evaluation process. Obviously,
the vision set out by our programme manager(s) never made it to the
reviewers who seemed to follow quite different guidelines, if any.

Lastly, from what I can see around me, particularly in the Mediterranean
club, it appears more important and beneficial to spend time in Brussels
wiping door handles and leaving a professorial - directorial impression
rather than composing upbeat cutting edge science proposals. It is ever so
disheartening that within the FWP our success seems to depend more on who
we know than the quality we present. Last time when programme managerial
posts in the commission were reshuffled the primary concern around here was
that "we now lose our contacts". This is wrong, a disgrace to our community.

I have had a few conversations with colleagues who were partners in EU
proposals, both successful ones and ones that were rejected. From these
conversations I sense a growing degree of tiredness about EU science policy
and more so, about the chaotic way proposals are being solicited and then
turned down on grounds that so very obviously have nothing to do with the
science presented. There is also the notion that within the commission
climate and paleo-work has fallen from grace, for reasons not known to
many. Which brings me back to the point that perhaps we do not have the
right programme managers in place to fend our cause.

I am prepared to write a firm letter to the commission, or to contribute to
such letter, about the issues impinging on the poor performance of the
commision. I rather do that before turning entirely into a full-grown
Eurosceptic.

Rainer



Rainer Zahn, Professor de Recerca
Instituci

Original Filename: 1115887684.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Denis-Didier.Rousseau@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
To: <Eystein.Jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <Imprint-partner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: [Fwd: RE: commission performance alpha 5]
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 04:48:04 +0200 (MEST)

Dear all IMPRINT colleagues,
Being away from Europe, this was a very bad news that I got this morning
listening about the rejection of IMPRINT. Eystein did a great job by being
able to gather the European paleo community under a common umbrella and he
desereves a lot of our consideration.
Concerning now the review process, I have been involved several times in
Brussels and I have been able to see the evolution of the evaluating panel
session after session.

I am not please with this evaluation and I already addressed my comments
to Andre Berger. It is not normal that entering the room where you are
supposed to meet the other "panelists" you would not know those who are
supposed to be representative of your community, this is my first comment.

Second, the way the referees are selected is somehow strange and involve a
political issue which is very sensitive as I'm sure you will understand
that a country fair representation is not enough in our field which better
involves expertise.

Third and last, having set a consortium of the leading Europe institutions
and scientists, how can you expect appropriate expertise? I have been
approached to join the evaluating panel but refused as being an IMPRINT
member to respect some ethic. If, what I wish, we all didi that way, they
one can sincerely expect the worst as I already experienced in a recent
past.

Forth, complaining to the commission is a waste of time as these
administrative people, even if this is you right, will always provide you
with arguments to justify the decision. I complain once to the director of
the programme who just retun me that the referees of my proposal were
relevant, what I know was not the case unfortunately. However I totally
support the initiative to question the commission on the way the
evaluations are performed, but also how the referees are selected.

Fifth, you all are waiting for the reviews. I agree with Rainer that the
comments that are provided are useless and in somehow offending the PIs.
This is mostly due to the review process and this again must be changed.
Furthermore what we receive is the consensus report which passed in the
European officers hands to be cleaned of any agressive sentences or words,
and must remain politically correct. So effectively these reports are
useless. It would be interesting to get also the individual reports on
which the consensus one has been established and would better show the
real work of every referee, and we would be very surprised sometimes.

Finaly to follow Thomas, Rainer and Eric, I would suggest to continue what
has been launched with IMPRINT which is to my sense unique in gathering
all the European paleo community under the same umbrella. May be the
proposal was too broad, but this was following the commission's aim. The
"Millenium" proposal benefited of several consecutive EU supports which
apparently helped a lot. Their lobbying seem to have ben very efficient,
not only in Brussels but in the journals and meetings. The Utrecht
initiative was a good one which must stop today. We have the opportunity
to gather regularly at least once during the EGU that we all are
attending, why not using such opportunity to reinforce the initiative
during such meeting?

All the very best to all of you

cheers

denis



-------- Urspr&uuml;ngliche Nachricht --------
Betreff: RE: commission performance alpha 5
Von: "Polychronis Tzedakis" <P.C.Tzedakis@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Datum: Mit, 11.05.2005, 17:25
An: "Rainer Zahn" <rainer.zahn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
"Thomas Stocker" <stocker@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
"Atte Korhola" <atte.korhola@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Dear all,
First of all a big hand for Eystein and all those who put in so much
time into this task. Very disheartening to hear the outcome.

I have muych sympathy with what Rainer Zahn has said, especially on the
Brussels front and the client relationships that are cultivated with EU
officials.

I think that in addition to a letter to the EU, I would suggest that
perhaps an editorial in NAture or something similar, outlining the
growing degree of scepticism amongst scientists regarding the
transparency of the EU funding process might be in order.

Chronis Tzedakis


-----Original Message-----
From: Rainer Zahn [mailto:rainer.zahn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Wed 5/11/2005 2:47 PM
To: Thomas Stocker; Atte Korhola
Cc: Eystein.Jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; Imprint-partner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx;
beatriz.balino@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; atle.nesje@xxxxxxxxx.xxx;
oyvind.lie@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; john.birks@xxxxxxxxx.xxx;
Carin.Andersson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; trond.dokken@xxxxxxxxx.xxx;
ulysses.ninnemann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx; Astrid.Bardgard@xxxxxxxxx.xxx;
richard.telford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: commission performance alpha 5

dear Eystein, dear Imprint consortium,

I am sure I will not make many friends with what follows below. Firstly,
it surely is sad and disheartening to see our proposal going down. and
there are many issues involved some of which have been named in the
recent emails. But then there are those issues left that have not been
named but which I consider relevant if we are to make progress on the
EU FWP front. Some of these issues may and will touch a personal nerve
here and there, but let's face some of the unpleasant realities much
rather than sitting back and keeping going with business as usual, a
business that soon may go out of existence.

First, I am not convinced that Imprint was the best we could have done.
On my side I was surprised to no small extent during our London meeting
to see that those from the modeling community and other groups present
obviously had no idea why our palaeo-component (a derivative of the
planned ICON IP) was part of Imprint, and they were not overly
favourable to listen and expand their views. So in a sense, even within
our own consortium there was, perhaps still is a lack of insight and
understanding as to what a palaeo-component is about and will have to
offer. In the end I am now left with the impression that ICON would
have stood a good chance to survive on its own.

Second, as a member of the Imprint consortium I still find it difficult
today to sort through this proposal and its various components, tasks,
topics, milestones, deliverables etc. Which only tells me how ever so
more difficult it must have been for outsiders i.e., reviewers to sift
through the bits and pieces and comprehend what this is about. But I
also feel that this has to do with the concept of IPs at large as it is
not an easy task to compose an IP consortium of the dimension and wide
range of expertise envisioned by the commission. The outcome of the
whole process in my view confirms the notion that the concept of IPs
has fundamentally (and to a large degree predictably) failed. This
concept reflects a substantial lack of insight on the side of those who
were, presumably still are involved in designing research policies in
the commission about what science is about and how it works. Those
parties should not be where they are, and they certainly should not be
involved in setting up FWP7

This is what I have to say about our proposal.

As for the Commission's performance it is not my impression they are
living up to their own standards that they have set up for the quality
of proposals requested. In particular the proposal evaluation process
is ridiculous and lacks any degree of substance. For instance, the
reviews that I did receive in response to my RTN proposal (submitted
last year) are mediocre at best, meaningless and useless in detail,
beyond anything I would consider expert insight, simply a waste of time
and tax payers' money. They are an insult to anybody who did contribute
to and put work and effort into that proposal. As for the Impront
proposal we now are faced with the prospect that the only IP proposal,
Millennium, that is competing with Imprint from the outset was received
more favourably than our own proposal. With this I could live were it
not for the fact that in Millennium everything is named as a strategy
and work plan that we were being advised to not do. This speaks a
language of its own and to me reflects a fundamental lack of
enthusiasm, professionalism and competence with those who give advice
and organize the evaluation process. Obviously, the vision set out by
our programme manager(s) never made it to the reviewers who seemed to
follow quite different guidelines, if any.

Lastly, from what I can see around me, particularly in the Mediterranean
club, it appears more important and beneficial to spend time in
Brussels wiping door handles and leaving a professorial - directorial
impression rather than composing upbeat cutting edge science proposals.
It is ever so disheartening that within the FWP our success seems to
depend more on who we know than the quality we present. Last time when
programme managerial posts in the commission were reshuffled the
primary concern around here was that "we now lose our contacts". This
is wrong, a disgrace to our community.

I have had a few conversations with colleagues who were partners in EU
proposals, both successful ones and ones that were rejected. From these
conversations I sense a growing degree of tiredness about EU science
policy and more so, about the chaotic way proposals are being solicited
and then turned down on grounds that so very obviously have nothing to
do with the science presented. There is also the notion that within the
commission climate and paleo-work has fallen from grace, for reasons
not known to many. Which brings me back to the point that perhaps we do
not have the right programme managers in place to fend our cause.

I am prepared to write a firm letter to the commission, or to contribute
to such letter, about the issues impinging on the poor performance of
the commision. I rather do that before turning entirely into a
full-grown Eurosceptic.

Rainer



Rainer Zahn, Professor de Recerca
Instituci

Original Filename: 1139850906.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>
To: Henry Pollack <hpollack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Wg1-ar4-ch06] SOD- template and FOD document
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:15:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
Hi Henry (and Keith) - thanks for the quick
effort! Regarding your comments, here's some
feedback - it's good Keith beat me too it.

1. For Fig. 6.9b, there is a new version that
resulted in lots of discussion at our last
meeting. Keith can elaborate when he has time
(we're pushing him real hard now for the SOD
text), but we agree the caption has to be clear.

2. I'm worried about your discussion of southern
hemisphere records, and trust Keith will get it
right. Too bad your paper isn't in press too - it
would be nice to include.

3. Hope you can help Keith with uncertainty
prose. We are over length and hence we can't have
more figures (e.g., with confidence intervals
shown for all data). Please help him work it into
the SOD text.

4. It is unclear if we'll have time for review of
the whole chapter, but I'm still hoping Keith
will send you all of Section 6.6 to look at. That
assumes he has it done today or very soon at
least. The more people that can look at text the
better, but we also have to get the draft done -
it can then be reviewed, and we will make sure
CAs get to review in a more timely fashion this
time.

Thanks again, Peck

>Hi Peck, Eystein and Keith,
>
>Attached in Borehole SOD.doc is a 'rewrite' of the borehole stuff. You
>will recognize the 'rewrite', as it still addresses everything in
>the FOD draft sent to me, with much the same language. It is, however,
>an improvement in
>structure, and has a more balanced discussion. Keith, if you want more
>insight into why I
>have presented the material this way, I'll be happy to elaborate.
>
>The rewrite occupies lines xxx xxxx xxxxof page xxx xxxx xxxxSOD and lines xxx xxxx xxxxof page 6-31.
>
>Also attached is the full SOD template with the 'rewrite' and
>references inserted. It is not clear from your instructions that you
>wanted this to be done, but now you have it if you want it.
>
>Also attached are my replies to the reviewers of the FOD.
>
>I am sending everything today (Sunday), so everyone will get it as
>early as possible.
>
>Some additional comments in areas outside the narrowly defined
>'borehole' section:
>
>In Figure 6.9b, I recommend removing the instrumental record prior to
>1860, because it
>apparently represents only four European stations. The figure is
>captioned to represent
>the entire northern hemisphere.
>
>In section 6.6.2 Southern Hemisphere Temperature Variability page 6-32,
>lines 56-57: The
>two geothermal reconstructions shown, for southern Africa and
>Australia, do NOT indicate
>unusually warm conditions prevailing in the 20th century. Both
>reconstructions miss the
>rapid warming in the last two decades of the 20th century because many
>of the boreholes
>were logged prior to that excursion. The two reconstructions do match
>well the pre-1980
>SAT trends. I discuss this in a paper now in review by J. Quaternary
>Sci., titled "Five
>centuries of climate change in Australia: the view from underground."
>The southern
>hemisphere is NOT discussed in Pollack and Smerdon (2004), which you
>have cited there.
>
>If you will find it helpful, I can scan the entire chapter and provide
>comments, but
>perhaps that could wait until you have passed the immediate deadline in
>front of you.
>
>Cheers,
>Henry
>
>
> ___ ___ Henry N. Pollack
>[ / ] Professor of Geophysics
> | / | Department of Geological Sciences
> |MICHIGAN| University of Michigan
>[___]/[___] Ann Arbor, Michigan 48xxx xxxx xxxx, U.S.A.
>
> Phone: xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: xxx xxxx xxxx
> e-mail: hpollack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> URL: www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~hpollack/
> URL: www-personal.umich.edu/~hpollack/book.html
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>Quoting Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>:
>
>>Hi Henry - yes, it's true, but that's why we all get things done. Thanks.
>>
>>We have a serious space problem with the chapter, and need to
>>generally reduce it's size. However, if you nee a couple more lines
>>to do it well, and to get the proper refs in there (there are
>>undoubtedly new ones?), you may do so. We can always cut later... (so
>>don't add more than just a few lines max).
>>
>>As soon as you're done, pls email to me, Eystein and Keith. The
>>sooner Keith can finish the complete section, the sooner we can all
>>look at it and edit.
>>
>>The NAS/NRC mtg is at a crappy time. I can't travel then since I'm
>>alone w/ the kids, but I've been discussing helping by phone if
>>possible. The problem is that March 3 (the day they really want my
>>input) is the deadline for the SOD. If it's anything like last time
>>(FOD), I won't have time but for a quick trip to the bathroom now and
>>then to recycle coffee. But, I'm glad to hear you're in the loop. I
>>might still be able to help, since we're trying to do this so it
>>isn't a madhouse at the very end.
>>
>>Best, peck
>>
>>>Hi Peck,
>>>
>>>Yes, I will be working weekends -- don't we always??
>>>
>>>Are you attending the NAS/NRC hearing on surface temperature
>>>reconstructions on March 2?
>>>
>>>I will take you up on the invitation to (re)write the 40 lines of the
>>>borehole section.
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>Henry
>>> ___ ___ Henry N. Pollack
>>>[ / ] Professor of Geophysics
>>> | / | Department of Geological Sciences
>>> |MICHIGAN| University of Michigan
>>>[___]/[___] Ann Arbor, Michigan 48xxx xxxx xxxx, U.S.A.
>>>
>>> Phone: xxx xxxx xxxxFAX: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> e-mail: hpollack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>> URL: www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~hpollack/
>>> URL: www-personal.umich.edu/~hpollack/book.html
>>>
>>>
>>>Quoting Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>:
>>>
>>>>Hi Henry - see the notes below on how to best update your section
>>>>using the attached files (and comments you already have).
>>>>
>>>>Julie is flying to Germany tomorrow, so I'll be single-parenting and
>>>>my email will be at night on the weekend. If you have urgent need for
>>>>input, you can call me:
>>>>
>>>>xxx xxxx xxxx(home)
>>>>xxx xxxx xxxx(cell - only good if I'm in town - best to use home on
>>>>weekends, and cell weekdays)
>>>>
>>>>Thanks again, peck
>>>>
>>>>>X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
>>>>>Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 08:59:33 +0100
>>>>>To: wg1-ar4-ch06@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>>From: Eystein Jansen <Eystein.Jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>>Subject: [Wg1-ar4-ch06] SOD- template and FOD document
>>>>>X-BeenThere: wg1-ar4-ch06@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>>List-Id: <wg1-ar4-ch06.joss.ucar.edu>
>>>>>List-Help: <mailto:wg1-ar4-ch06-request@xxxxxxxxx.xxx?subject=help>
>>>>>List-Post: <mailto:wg1-ar4-ch06@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>>List-Subscribe: <http://www.joss.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/wg1-ar4-ch06>,
>>>>> <mailto:wg1-ar4-ch06-request@xxxxxxxxx.xxx?subject=subscribe>
>>>>>List-Archive: <http://www.joss.ucar.edu/mailman/private/wg1-ar4-ch06>
>>>>>List-Unsubscribe:
>>>>><http://www.joss.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/wg1-ar4-ch06>,
>>>>> <mailto:wg1-ar4-ch06-request@xxxxxxxxx.xxx?subject=unsubscribe>
>>>>>Sender: wg1-ar4-ch06-bounces@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>>
>>>>>Dear friends,
>>>>>In preparation for your rewriting of the FOD as SOD, we send you
>>>>>the following documents.
>>>>>1. A new template for the FOD which is restructured so that the
>>>>>decisions on structure we made in Christchurch have been taken into
>>>>>account. We also send you the word version of the FOD which is the
>>>>>final version used for the review, in case you do not have this.
>>>>>This is the version for which the comments refer to.
>>>>>In the rewriting we would ask you to rewrite into the SOD template
>>>>>document, thus:
>>>>>1. Find the relevant comment or section to be rewritten in the FOD.
>>>>>2. Then the corresponding section in the SOD document, and rewrrite
>>>>>the text there. References should also be inserted into the SOD
>>>>>document.
>>>>>You have to work in parallel with both documents, but we do not see
>>>>>any way around this in order to arrive at a SOD without too many
>>>>>problems of technical sort.
>>>>>
>>>>>Cheers, and best luck.
>>>>>Peck and Eystein
>>>>>--
>>>>>______________________________________________________________
>>>>>Eystein Jansen
>>>>>Professor/Director
>>>>>Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and
>>>>>Dep. of Earth Science, Univ. of Bergen
>>>>>All

Original Filename: 1220039621.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Thomas.R.Karl" <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: paper on smoothing
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:53:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Curtis Covey <covey1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "Folland, Chris" <chris.folland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stefan Rahmstorf <rahmstorf@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
yeah, its statistically real, but an artifact almost certainly of
natural variability. As Josh Willis nicely pointed out in a recent
interview, anyone citing this as a reason to doubt the reality of
anthropogenic climate change is like a vegas roller thinking he can beat
the system because he's on a momentary winning streak...

m

Thomas.R.Karl wrote:
> Curt,
>
> At this point the leveling off is more of a Blog myth than any change
> point scientific analysis
>
> Tom
> Kevin Trenberth said the following on 8/29/2008 3:47 PM:
>> No
>> Kevin
>>
>> Curtis Covey wrote:
>>> Very interesting. Does it mean that the apparent leveling-off of
>>> global mean surface temperature since the turn of the century is due
>>> to "artificial suppression of trends near the time series boundaries" ?
>>>
>>> - Curt
>>>
>>> Michael Mann wrote:
>>>> dear all,
>>>>
>>>> attached is a paper of mine (GRL) on time series smoothing that
>>>> might be of interest.
>>>>
>>>> best regards,
>>>>
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>
>


--
Michael E. Mann
Associate Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx

website: http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
"Dire Predictions" book site: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/academic/product/0,3110,0136044352,00.html


</x-flowed>

Original Filename: 1255100876.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: CEI formal petition to derail EPA GHG endangerment finding with charge that destruction of CRU raw data undermines integrity of global temperature record
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:07:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

<x-flowed>
Dear Phil,

I've known Rick Piltz for many years. He's a good guy. I believe he used
to work with Mike MacCracken at the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

I'm really sorry that you have to go through all this stuff, Phil. Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

I'll help you to deal with Michaels and the CEI in any way that I can.
The only reason these guys are going after you is because your work is
of crucial importance - it changed the way the world thinks about human
effects on climate. Your work mattered in the 1980s, and it matters now.

With best wishes,

Ben
P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote:
> Ben,
> Thanks for backing me up with whoever Rick is. I forwarded the message
> to Rick. So if you want to add anything else feel free to do so.
> We have more stations going into the latest CRU data than we did in the
> 1980s.
>
> In Lecce next week for 2 days at a GKSS summer school led by Hans VS!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>
>> Dear Rick,
>>
>> I am prepared to help in any way that I can.
>>
>> As I see it, there are two key issues here.
>>
>> First, the CEI and Pat Michaels are arguing that Phil Jones and
>> colleagues at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) willfully and
>> intentionally "destroyed" some of the raw surface temperature data used
>> in the construction of the gridded surface temperature datasets.
>>
>> Second, the CEI and Pat Michaels contend that the CRU surface
>> temperature datasets provided the sole basis for IPCC "discernible human
>> influence" conclusions.
>>
>> Both of these arguments are factually incorrect. First, there was no
>> intentional destruction of the primary source data. I am sure that, over
>> 20 years ago, Phil could not have foreseen that the raw station data
>> might be the subject of legal proceedings by the CEI and Pat Michaels.
>> Raw data were NOT secretly destroyed to avoid efforts by other
>> scientists to replicate the CRU and Hadley Centre-based estimates of
>> global-scale changes in near-surface temperature. In fact, a key point
>> here is that other groups (primarily at NCDC and at GISS, but also in
>> Russia) WERE able to replicate the major findings of the CRU and Hadley
>> Centre groups. The NCDC and GISS groups performed this replication
>> completely independently. They made different choices in the complex
>> process of choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known
>> inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in
>> instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding
>> procedures. NCDC and GISS-based estimates of global surface temperature
>> changes are in good accord with the HadCRUT results.
>>
>> I'm sure that Pat Michaels does not have the primary source data used in
>> his Ph.D. thesis. Perhaps one of us should request the datasets used in
>> Michaels' Ph.D. work, and then ask the University of Wisconsin to
>> withdraw Michaels' Ph.D. if he fails to produce every dataset and
>> computer program used in the course of his thesis research.
>>
>> I'm equally sure that John Christy and Roy Spencer have not preserved
>> every single version of their MSU-based estimates of tropospheric
>> temperature change. Nor is it likely that Christy and Spencer have
>> preserved for posterity each and every computer program they used to
>> generate UAH tropospheric temperature datasets.
>>
>> [One irony here is that the Christy/Spencer claim that the troposphere
>> had cooled over the satellite era did not stand up to rigorous
>> scientific scrutiny. Christy and Spencer have made a scientific career
>> out of being wrong. In contrast, CRU's claim of a pronounced increase in
>> global-mean surface temperature over the 20th century HAS withstood the
>> test of time.]
>>
>> The CEI and Michaels are applying impossible legal standards to science.
>> They are essentially claiming that if we do not retain - and make
>> available to self-appointed auditors - every piece of information about
>> every scientific paper we have ever published, we are perpetrating some
>> vast deception on the American public. I think most ordinary citizens
>> understand that few among us have preserved every bank statement and
>> every utility bill we've received in the last 20 years.
>>
>> The second argument - that "discernible human influence" findings are
>> like a house of cards, resting solely on one observational dataset - is
>> also invalid. The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) considers MULTIPLE
>> observational estimates of global-scale near-surface temperature
>> changes. It does not rely on HadCRUT data alone - as is immediately
>> obvious from Figure 2.1b of the TAR, which shows CRU, NCDC, and GISS
>> global-mean temperature changes.
>>
>> As pointed out in numerous scientific assessments (e.g., the IPCC TAR
>> and Fourth Assessment Reports, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
>> Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, and the CCSP "State of Knowledge"
>> Report), rigorous statistical fingerprint studies have now been
>> performed with a whole range of climate variables - and not with surface
>> temperature only. Examples include variables like ocean heat content,
>> atmospheric water vapor, surface specific humidity, continental river
>> runoff, sea-level pressure patterns, stratospheric and tropospheric
>> temperature, tropopause height, zonal-mean precipitation over land, and
>> Arctic sea-ice extent. The bottom-line message from this body of work is
>> that natural causes alone CANNOT plausibly explain the climate changes
>> we have actually observed. The climate system is telling us an
>> internally- and physically-consistent story. The integrity and
>> reliability of this story does NOT rest on a single observational
>> dataset, as Michaels and the CEI incorrectly claim.
>>
>> Michaels should and does know better. I can only conclude from his
>> behavior - and from his participation in this legal action - that he is
>> being intentionally dishonest. His intervention seems to be timed to
>> influence opinion in the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting, and to garner
>> publicity for himself. In my personal opinion, Michaels should be kicked
>> out of the AMS, the University of Virginia, and the scientific community
>> as a whole. He cannot on the one hand engage in vicious public attacks
>> on the reputations of individual scientists (in the past he has attacked
>> Tom Karl, Tom Wigley, Jim Hansen, Mike Mann, myself, and numerous
>> others), and on the other hand expect to be treated as a valued member
>> of our professional societies.
>>
>> The sad thing here is that Phil Jones is one of the true gentlemen of
>> our field. I have known Phil for most of my scientific career. He is the
>> antithesis of the secretive, "data destroying" character the CEI and
>> Michaels are trying to portray to the outside world. Phil and Tom Wigley
>> have devoted significant portions of their scientific careers to the
>> construction of the land surface temperature component of the HadCRUT
>> dataset. They have conducted this research in a very open and
>> transparent manner - examining sensitivities to different gridding
>> algorithms, different ways of adjusting for urbanization effects, use of
>> various subsets of data, different ways of dealing with changes in
>> spatial coverage over time, etc. They have thoroughly and
>> comprehensively documented all of their dataset construction choices.
>> They have done a tremendous service to the scientific community - and to
>> the planet - by making gridded surface temperature datasets available
>> for scientific research. They deserve medals as big as soup plates - not
>> the kind of crap they are receiving from Pat Michaels and the CEI.
>>
>> The bottom line, Rick, is that I am incensed at the "data destruction"
>> allegations that are being unfairly and incorrectly leveled against Phil
>> and Tom by the CEI and Pat Michaels. Please let me know how you think I
>> can be most effective in rebutting such allegations. Whatever you need
>> from me - you've got it.
>>
>> I hope you don't mind, but I'm also copying my email to John Mitchell at
>> the Hadley Centre. I know that John also feels very strongly about these
>> issues.
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> Rick Piltz wrote:
>>> Gentlemen--
>>>
>>> I expect that you have already been made aware of the petition to EPA
>>> from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (and Pat Michaels) calling for
>>> a re-opening of public comment on EPA's prospective "endangerment"
>>> finding on greenhouse gases. CEI is charging that the CRU at East Anglia
>>> has destroyed the raw data for a portion of the global temperature
>>> record, thus destroying the integrity of the IPCC assessments and any
>>> other work that treats the UK Jones-Wigley global temperature data
>>> record as scientifically legitimate. I have attached the petition in
>>> PDF, with a statements by CEI and Michaels.
>>>
>>> The story was reported in Environment & Energy Daily yesterday (below).
>>> They called me for it, presumably because I am on their call list as
>>> someone who gets in the face of the global warming disinformation
>>> campaign, among other things. I hit CEI, but I don't have a technical
>>> response to their allegations.
>>>
>>> Who is responding to this charge on behalf of the science community?
>>> Surely someone will have to, if only because EPA will need to know
>>> exactly what to say. And really I believe all of you, as the
>>> authoritative experts, should be prepared to do that in a way that has
>>> some collective coherence.
>>>
>>> I am going to be writing about this on my Climate Science Watch Website
>>> as soon as I think I can do so appropriately. I am most interested in
>>> what you have to say to set the record straight and put things in
>>> perspective -- either on or off the record, whichever you wish. Will
>>> someone please explain this to me?
>>>
>>> Best regrads,
>>> Rick
>>>
>>>
>>> *1. CLIMATE: Free-market group attacks data behind EPA
>>> 'endangerment' proposal (E&E News PM, 10/07/2009)
>>>
>>> *
>>>
>>>
>>> *Robin Bravender, E&E reporter*
>>>
>>> A free-market advocacy group has launched another attack on the science
>>> behind U.S. EPA's proposed finding that greenhouse gases endanger human
>>> health and welfare.
>>>
>>> The Competitive Enterprise Institute -- a vocal foe of EPA's efforts to
>>> finalize its "endangerment finding" -- *petitioned*
>>> <http://**www.**eenews.net/features/documents/2009/10/07/document_pm_02.pdf>
>>> the agency this week to reopen the public comment period on the
>>> proposal, arguing that critical data used to formulate the plan have
>>> been destroyed and that the available data are therefore unreliable.
>>>
>>> *At issue is a set of raw data from the Climatic Research Unit at the
>>> University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, that includes surface
>>> temperature averages from weather stations around the world. *According
>>> to CEI, the data provided a foundation for the 1996 second assessment
>>> report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which EPA used
>>> when drafting its endangerment proposal.
>>>
>>> According to the Web site for East Anglia's research unit, "Data storage
>>> availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the
>>> multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after
>>> adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the
>>> original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and
>>> homogenized) data."
>>>
>>> CEI general counsel Sam Kazman said this lack of raw data calls the
>>> endangerment finding into question. *"EPA is resting its case on
>>> international studies that in turn relied on CRU data. But CRU's
>>> suspicious destruction of its original data, disclosed at this late
>>> date, makes that information totally unreliable," he said.* "If EPA
>>> doesn't re-examine the implications of this, it's stumbling blindly into
>>> the most important regulatory issue we face."
>>>
>>> *In a statement filed with CEI's petition, Cato Institute senior fellow
>>> Patrick Michaels called the development a "totally new element" in the
>>> endangerment debate. "It violates basic scientific principles and throws
>>> even more doubt onto the contention that anthropogenic greenhouse gas
>>> emissions endanger human welfare," he wrote.
>>>
>>> *Michaels is a University of Virginia professor and author of the book,
>>> "The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming." He stepped
>>> down from his post as Virginia's state climatologist in 2007 after he
>>> came under fire for publicly doubting global warming while taking money
>>> from the utility industry (/ Greenwire/
>>> <http://**eenews.net/Greenwire/2007/09/27/archive/9>, Sept. 27, 2007).
>>>
>>> Representatives of East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit were
>>> not available to comment on the CEI petition.
>>>
>>> EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency will evaluate the petition.
>>> "But after initial review of the statement their position rests upon,"
>>> Andy added, "it certainly does not appear to justify upheaval."
>>>
>>> The petition is the latest in a string of CEI challenges to the
>>> proceedings surrounding the endangerment finding and other Obama
>>> administration climate policies. Last week, the group threatened to sue
>>> the administration over documents related to the costs of a federal
>>> cap-and-trade program to curb greenhouse gas emissions. And in June, the
>>> group accused EPA officials of suppressing dissenting views from an EPA
>>> environmental economist during the run-up to the release of the
>>> endangerment proposal.
>>>
>>> Rick Piltz, director of the watchdog group Climate Science Watch and a
>>> former official at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, said that
>>> although the research unit's data are among key data sets used by the
>>> IPCC, "it's not the only data set that they use." He also said EPA drew
>>> on "multifaceted, robust" data in the technical support document
>>> underlying the finding.
>>>
>>> EPA's endangerment finding relies most heavily on IPCC's 2007 fourth
>>> assessment; synthesis and assessment products of the U.S. Climate Change
>>> Science Program; National Research Council reports under the U.S.
>>> National Academy of Sciences; the EPA annual report on U.S. greenhouse
>>> gas emission inventories; and the EPA assessment of the effects of
>>> global change on regional U.S. air quality, according to the agency's
>>> technical support document.
>>>
>>> "You do not need to reopen the IPCC reports and the technical support
>>> document on the EPA endangerment finding because of something having to
>>> do with the raw data from the temperature record from East Anglia
>>> University in the 1980s," Piltz said, adding that the IPCC carefully
>>> vets its data.
>>>
>>> Piltz said CEI is on an ideological mission to head off EPA attempts to
>>> finalize the endangerment finding and is "grasping at straws" by
>>> challenging the IPCC data.
>>>
>>> "Their bottom line is an antiregulatory ideology," Piltz said. "When
>>> they use science, they use it tactically, and they will go to war with
>>> the mainstream science community."
>>>
>>> Republican senators also weighed in yesterday, urging EPA to reopen the
>>> public comment period on the endangerment finding to investigate the
>>> scientific merit of the research data.
>>>
>>> "It's astonishing that EPA, so confident in the scientific integrity of
>>> its work, refuses to be transparent with the public about the most
>>> consequential rulemaking of our time," said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.),
>>> ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe
>>> sent a joint press release with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) accusing EPA
>>> of relying upon flawed data.
>>>
>>> "Now the evidence shows that scientists interested in testing some of
>>> EPA's assertions can't engage in basic scientific work, such as assuring
>>> reproducibility and objectivity, because the data they seek have been
>>> destroyed," Inhofe said. "In order to conform to federal law and basic
>>> standards of scientific integrity, EPA must reopen the record so the
>>> public can judge whether EPA's claims are based on the best available
>>> scientific information."
>>>
>>> Rick Piltz
>>> Director, Climate Science Watch
>>> xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> www.**climatesciencewatch.org
>>>
>>> <http://**www.**climatesciencewatch.org/>Climate Science Watch is a
>>> sponsored project of the Government Accountability Project, Washington,
>>> DC, dedicated to holding public officials accountable for using climate
>>> science and related research effectively and with integrity in
>>> responding to the challenges posed by global climate disruption.
>>>
>>> The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal
>>> any part of what one has recognized to be true.
>>> --Albert Einstein
>>>
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Benjamin D. Santer
>> Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
>> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
>> P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
>> Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
>> Tel: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
>> FAX: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
>> email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
>


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
FAX: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

</x-flowed>

Original Filename: 1255352257.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in
Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We
had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it
smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a
record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies
baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing
weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global
energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained
from the author.)
The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008
shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing
system is inadequate.
That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on a
monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the
change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing with
the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time since
Sept 2007. see
[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_c
urrent.ppt
Kevin
Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and
sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino year
and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few
tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another dramatic
upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet
alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10 years of global mean
temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000 year record
and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big retreat?? Some of you observational folks
probably do need to straighten this out as my student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers,
Steve
Stephen H. Schneider
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,
Professor, Department of Biology and
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
Mailing address:
Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
473 Via Ortega
Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
F: xxx xxxx xxxx
Websites: climatechange.net
patientfromhell.org
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <[3]ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Stephen H Schneider" <[4]shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
Steve,
You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC's reporter on climate change, on Friday
wrote that there's been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force
cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are
other skeptics' views.


[5]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
[6]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-cl
imate-change/


BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.


Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?


Narasimha


-------------------------------
PhD Candidate,
Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)
Stanford University
Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx


--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [7]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [8]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[9]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [10]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [11]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

References

1. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf
2. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
3. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
6. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
7. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
8. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
9. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
10. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html

Original Filename: 1255352444.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, trenbert <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I
can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and
sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino year
and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few
tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another dramatic
upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet
alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10 years of global mean
temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000 year record
and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big retreat?? Some of you observational folks
probably do need to straighten this out as my student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers,
Steve
Stephen H. Schneider
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,
Professor, Department of Biology and
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
Mailing address:
Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
473 Via Ortega
Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
F: xxx xxxx xxxx
Websites: climatechange.net
patientfromhell.org
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <[1]ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Stephen H Schneider" <[2]shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
Steve,
You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on Friday
wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force
cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are
other skeptics views.


[3]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
[4]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-cl
imate-change/


BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.


Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?


Narasimha


-------------------------------
PhD Candidate,
Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)
Stanford University
Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx


--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [5]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [6]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[7]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

References

Visible links
1. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
4. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
5. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
7. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Hidden links:
8. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

Original Filename: 1255496484.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:01:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by ueamailgate01.uea.ac.uk id n9E71pl4015864

<x-flowed>
Dear all,

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent
lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at
the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend
relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second is to remove
ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the observed data.

Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second
method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of
warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not
agree with this.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> Hi all
> Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are
> asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two
> days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high
> the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also
> a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January
> weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday
> and then played last night in below freezing weather).
>
> Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning:
> tracking Earth's global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental
> Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
> <http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf>
> (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
>
> The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment
> and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the
> August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more
> warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
>
> That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are
> tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO.
> Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real PDO. It
> surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the switch to
> El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time
> since Sept 2007. see
> http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
>
> Kevin
>
> Michael Mann wrote:
>> extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its
>> particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC
>> (and he does a great job). from what I can tell, this guy was formerly
>> a weather person at the Met Office.
>>
>> We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might
>> be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might
>> ask Richard Black what's up here?
>>
>> mike
>>
>> On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and
>>> signal to noise and sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author"
>>> from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino year and as soon, as the
>>> sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few
>>> tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely
>>> be another dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard
>>> someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet alot of money
>>> on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10 years of
>>> global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest
>>> in reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea ice of
>>> the North in big retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably
>>> do need to straighten this out as my student suggests below. Such
>>> "fun", Cheers, Steve
>>>
>>>
>>> Stephen H. Schneider
>>> Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental
>>> Studies,
>>> Professor, Department of Biology and
>>> Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
>>> Mailing address:
>>> Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
>>> 473 Via Ortega
>>> Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> F: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Websites: climatechange.net
>>> patientfromhell.org
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>>> From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>> To: "Stephen H Schneider" <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>> Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
>>> Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
>>>
>>> Steve,
>>> You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC

Original Filename: 1255523796.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:36:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Mike
Here are some of the issues as I see them:
Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go? We know there is a build up of ocean heat prior to El Nino, and a
discharge (and sfc T warming) during late stages of El Nino, but is the observing system
sufficient to track it? Quite aside from the changes in the ocean, we know there are major
changes in the storm tracks and teleconnections with ENSO, and there is a LOT more rain on
land during La Nina (more drought in El Nino), so how does the albedo change overall
(changes in cloud)? At the very least the extra rain on land means a lot more heat goes
into evaporation rather than raising temperatures, and so that keeps land temps down: and
should generate cloud. But the resulting evaporative cooling means the heat goes into
atmosphere and should be radiated to space: so we should be able to track it with CERES
data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean
data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and
burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it
comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.
Kevin
Michael Mann wrote:

Kevin, that's an interesting point. As the plot from Gavin I sent shows, we can easily
account for the observed surface cooling in terms of the natural variability seen in
the CMIP3 ensemble (i.e. the observed cold dip falls well within it). So in that sense,
we can "explain" it. But this raises the interesting question, is there something going
on here w/ the energy & radiation budget which is inconsistent with the modes of
internal variability that leads to similar temporary cooling periods within the models.
I'm not sure that this has been addressed--has it?

m

On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where
energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not
close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is
happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as
we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin
Tom Wigley wrote:

Dear all,

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent

lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at

the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend relative to the pdf
for unforced variability. The second is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations
from the observed data.

Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second

method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment
and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not

agree with this.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here
in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal
is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about
18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather
(see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last
night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's
global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
<[1]http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf>
(A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on
2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our
observing system is inadequate.

That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on
a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is
the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing
with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time
since Sept 2007. see
[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitorin
g_current.ppt

Kevin

Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and
sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino
year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a
few tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another
dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was
willing to bet alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10
years of global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in
reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big
retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do need to straighten this out as my
student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers, Steve

Stephen H. Schneider

Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,

Professor, Department of Biology and

Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

Mailing address:

Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205

473 Via Ortega

Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx

F: xxx xxxx xxxx

Websites: climatechange.net

patientfromhell.org

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <[3]ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[4]mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

To: "Stephen H Schneider" <[5]shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[6]mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific

Subject: BBC U-turn on climate

Steve,

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC's reporter on climate change, on
Friday wrote that there's been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will
force cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as
are other skeptics' views.

[7]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

[8]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on
-climate-change/

BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.

Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Narasimha

-------------------------------

PhD Candidate,

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)

Stanford University

Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx

--

Michael E. Mann

Professor

Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

The Pennsylvania State University email: [9]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[10]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx

website: [11]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
<[12]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html>

"Dire Predictions" book site:
[13]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--

****************

Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [14]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Climate Analysis Section, [15]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html

NCAR

P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx

Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [16]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [17]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [18]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [19]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[20]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [21]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [22]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

References

1. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf
2. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
3. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
8. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
9. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
10. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
12. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
13. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
14. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
15. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
16. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
17. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
18. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
19. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
20. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
21. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
22. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html

Original Filename: 1255530325.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Kevin, that's an interesting point. As the plot from Gavin I sent shows, we can easily
account for the observed surface cooling in terms of the natural variability seen in the
CMIP3 ensemble (i.e. the observed cold dip falls well within it). So in that sense, we can
"explain" it. But this raises the interesting question, is there something going on here w/
the energy & radiation budget which is inconsistent with the modes of internal variability
that leads to similar temporary cooling periods within the models. I'm not sure that this
has been addressed--has it?

m

On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where
energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not
close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is
happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as
we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin
Tom Wigley wrote:

Dear all,

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent

lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at

the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend relative to the pdf
for unforced variability. The second is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations
from the observed data.

Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second

method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment
and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not

agree with this.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here
in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal
is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about
18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather
(see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last
night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's
global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
<[1]http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf>
(A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on
2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our
observing system is inadequate.

That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on
a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is
the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing
with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time
since Sept 2007. see
[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitorin
g_current.ppt

Kevin

Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and
sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino
year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a
few tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another
dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was
willing to bet alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10
years of global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in
reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big
retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do need to straighten this out as my
student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers, Steve

Stephen H. Schneider

Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,

Professor, Department of Biology and

Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

Mailing address:

Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205

473 Via Ortega

Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx

F: xxx xxxx xxxx

Websites: climatechange.net

patientfromhell.org

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[3]mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

To: "Stephen H Schneider" <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[4]mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific

Subject: BBC U-turn on climate

Steve,

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on
Friday wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will
force cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as
are other skeptics views.

[5]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

[6]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on
-climate-change/

BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.

Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Narasimha

-------------------------------

PhD Candidate,

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)

Stanford University

Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx

--

Michael E. Mann

Professor

Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

The Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[7]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx

website: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
<[8]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html>

"Dire Predictions" book site:
[9]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--

****************

Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [10]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Climate Analysis Section, [11]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html

NCAR

P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx

Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [12]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [13]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [14]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [15]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[16]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

References

Visible links
1. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf
2. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
3. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
6. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
7. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
8. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
9. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
10. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
12. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
13. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
14. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
15. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
16. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Hidden links:
17. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

Original Filename: 1255532032.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:53:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

thanks Kevin, yes, it's a matter of what question one is asking. to argue that the
observed global mean temperature anomalies of the past decade falsifies the model
projections of global mean temperature change, as contrarians have been fond of claiming,
is clearly wrong. but that doesn't mean we can explain exactly what's going on. there is
always the danger of falling a bit into the "we don't know everything, so we know nothing"
fallacy. hence, I wanted to try to clarify where we all agree, and where there may be
disagreement,

mike

On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:36 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Mike
Here are some of the issues as I see them:
Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes?
Where did the heat go? We know there is a build up of ocean heat prior to El Nino, and a
discharge (and sfc T warming) during late stages of El Nino, but is the observing system
sufficient to track it? Quite aside from the changes in the ocean, we know there are major
changes in the storm tracks and teleconnections with ENSO, and there is a LOT more rain on
land during La Nina (more drought in El Nino), so how does the albedo change overall
(changes in cloud)? At the very least the extra rain on land means a lot more heat goes
into evaporation rather than raising temperatures, and so that keeps land temps down: and
should generate cloud. But the resulting evaporative cooling means the heat goes into
atmosphere and should be radiated to space: so we should be able to track it with CERES
data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean
data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and
burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it
comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.
Kevin
Michael Mann wrote:

Kevin, that's an interesting point. As the plot from Gavin I sent shows, we can easily
account for the observed surface cooling in terms of the natural variability seen in
the CMIP3 ensemble (i.e. the observed cold dip falls well within it). So in that sense,
we can "explain" it. But this raises the interesting question, is there something going
on here w/ the energy & radiation budget which is inconsistent with the modes of
internal variability that leads to similar temporary cooling periods within the models.
I'm not sure that this has been addressed--has it?

m

On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where
energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not
close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is
happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as
we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin
Tom Wigley wrote:

Dear all,

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent

lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at

the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend relative to the pdf
for unforced variability. The second is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations
from the observed data.

Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second

method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.

These sums complement Kevin's energy work.

Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment
and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not

agree with this.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here
in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal
is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about
18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather
(see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last
night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's
global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
<[1]http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf>
(A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on
2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our
observing system is inadequate.

That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on
a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is
the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing
with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time
since Sept 2007. see
[2]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitorin
g_current.ppt

Kevin

Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:

Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and signal to noise and
sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino
year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a
few tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be another
dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was
willing to bet alot of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10
years of global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the warmest in
reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in big
retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do need to straighten this out as my
student suggests below. Such "fun", Cheers, Steve

Stephen H. Schneider

Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,

Professor, Department of Biology and

Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment

Mailing address:

Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205

473 Via Ortega

Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx

F: xxx xxxx xxxx

Websites: climatechange.net

patientfromhell.org

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <[3]ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[4]mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

To: "Stephen H Schneider" <[5]shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[6]mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>

Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific

Subject: BBC U-turn on climate

Steve,

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on
Friday wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will
force cooling for the next xxx xxxx xxxxyears. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as
are other skeptics views.

[7]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

[8]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on
-climate-change/

BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.

Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Narasimha

-------------------------------

PhD Candidate,

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)

Stanford University

Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx

--

Michael E. Mann

Professor

Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx

The Pennsylvania State University email: [9]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[10]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx

website: [11]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
<[12]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html>

"Dire Predictions" book site:
[13]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--

****************

Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [14]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Climate Analysis Section, [15]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html

NCAR

P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx

Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [16]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [17]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [18]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [19]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[20]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [21]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [22]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305

--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [23]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [24]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[25]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

References

Visible links
1. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf
2. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
3. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
8. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on-climate-change/
9. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
10. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
12. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
13. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
14. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
15. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
16. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
17. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
18. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
19. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/index.html
20. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
21. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
22. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
23. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
24. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
25. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Hidden links:
26. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

Original Filename: 1255550975.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:09:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
Kevin,

I didn't mean to offend you. But what you said was "we can't account
for the lack of warming at the moment". Now you say "we are no where
close to knowing where energy is going". In my eyes these are two
different things -- the second relates to our level of understanding,
and I agree that this is still lacking.

Tom.

++++++++++++++++++

Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> Hi Tom
> How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where
> close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to
> make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy
> budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the
> climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless
> as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a
> travesty!
> Kevin
>
> Tom Wigley wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent
>> lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at
>> the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend
>> relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second is to remove
>> ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the observed data.
>>
>> Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second
>> method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.
>>
>> These sums complement Kevin's energy work.
>>
>> Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of
>> warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I do not
>> agree with this.
>>
>> Tom.
>>
>> +++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> Kevin Trenberth wrote:
>>> Hi all
>>> Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We
>>> are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past
>>> two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow.
>>> The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it
>>> smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was
>>> about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
>>> This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was
>>> canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing
>>> weather).
>>>
>>> Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning:
>>> tracking Earth's global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental
>>> Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
>>> <http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf>
>>> (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
>>>
>>> The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the
>>> moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published
>>> in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even
>>> more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is
>>> inadequate.
>>>
>>> That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC
>>> are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with
>>> ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real
>>> PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the
>>> switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for
>>> first time since Sept 2007. see
>>> http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
>>>
>>>
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>> Michael Mann wrote:
>>>> extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC.
>>>> its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black's beat
>>>> at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I can tell, this guy was
>>>> formerly a weather person at the Met Office.
>>>> We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it
>>>> might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I
>>>> might ask Richard Black what's up here?
>>>>
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural variability and
>>>>> signal to noise and sampling errors to this new "IPCC Lead Author"
>>>>> from the BBC? As we enter an El Nino year and as soon, as the
>>>>> sunspots get over their temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few
>>>>> tenths of a Watt per meter squared reduced forcing, there will
>>>>> likely be another dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard
>>>>> someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet alot of money
>>>>> on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the past 10 years of
>>>>> global mean temperature trend stasis still saw what, 9 of the
>>>>> warmest in reconstructed 1000 year record and Greenland and the sea
>>>>> ice of the North in big retreat?? Some of you observational folks
>>>>> probably do need to straighten this out as my student suggests
>>>>> below. Such "fun", Cheers, Steve
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Stephen H. Schneider
>>>>> Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental
>>>>> Studies,
>>>>> Professor, Department of Biology and
>>>>> Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
>>>>> Mailing address:
>>>>> Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
>>>>> 473 Via Ortega
>>>>> Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> F: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> Websites: climatechange.net
>>>>> patientfromhell.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>>>>> From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>> <mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>>>> To: "Stephen H Schneider" <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada
>>>>> Pacific
>>>>> Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve,
>>>>> You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC

Original Filename: 1255553034.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:43:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Jim Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
Gavin,

I just think that you need to be up front with uncertainties
and the possibility of compensating errors.

Tom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gavin Schmidt wrote:
> Tom, with respect to the difference between the models and the data, the
> fundamental issue on short time scales is the magnitude of the internal
> variability. Using the full CMIP3 ensemble at least has multiple
> individual realisations of that internal variability and so is much more
> suited to a comparison with a short period of observations. MAGICC is
> great at the longer time scale, but its neglect of unforced variability
> does not make it useful for these kinds of comparison.
>
> The kind of things we are hearing "no model showed a cooling", the "data
> is outside the range of the models" need to be addressed directly.
>
> Gavin
>
> On Wed, 2xxx xxxx xxxxat 18:06, Michael Mann wrote:
>> Hi Tom,
>>
>> thanks for the comments. well, ok. but this is the full CMIP3
>> ensemble, so at least the plot is sampling the range of choices
>> regarding if and how indirect effects are represented, what the cloud
>> radiative feedback & sensitivity is, etc. across the modeling
>> community. I'm not saying that these things necessarily cancel out
>> (after all, there is an interesting and perhaps somewhat disturbing
>> compensation between indirect aerosol forcing and sensitivity across
>> the CMIP3 models that defies the assumption of independence), but if
>> showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine
>> what sort of comparison wouldn't be deceptive (your point re MAGICC
>> notwithstanding),
>>
>> perhaps Gavin has some further comments on this (it is his plot after
>> all),
>>
>> mike
>>
>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Tom Wigley wrote:
>>> Mike,
>>>
>>> The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical
>>> runs with PCM look as though they match observations -- but the
>>> match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low
>>> climate sensitivity -- compensating errors. In my (perhaps too
>>> harsh)
>>> view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
>>> results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
>>> results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
>>> here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
>>> forcing assumptions/uncertainties.
>>>
>>> Tom.
>>>
>>> +++++++++++++++++++
>>>
>>> Michael Mann wrote:
>>>> thanks Tom,
>>>> I've taken the liberty of attaching a figure that Gavin put
>>>> together the other day (its an update from a similar figure he
>>>> prepared for an earlier RealClimate post. see:
>>>> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/). It is indeed worth a thousand words, and drives home Tom's point below. We're planning on doing a post on this shortly, but would be nice to see the Sep. HadCRU numbers first,
>>>> mike
>>>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:01 AM, Tom Wigley wrote:
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>> At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the
>>>>> recent
>>>>> lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to
>>>>> look at
>>>>> the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic
>>>>> trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second
>>>>> is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the
>>>>> observed data.
>>>>> Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The
>>>>> second
>>>>> method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.
>>>>> These sums complement Kevin's energy work.
>>>>> Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack
>>>>> of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I
>>>>> do not
>>>>> agree with this.
>>>>> Tom.
>>>>> +++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>> Kevin Trenberth wrote:
>>>>>> Hi all
>>>>>> Well I have my own article on where the heck is global
>>>>>> warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have
>>>>>> broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
>>>>>> record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days
>>>>>> was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
>>>>>> previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F
>>>>>> and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
>>>>>> This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game
>>>>>> was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below
>>>>>> freezing weather).
>>>>>> Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change
>>>>>> planning: tracking Earth's global energy. /Current Opinion in
>>>>>> Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
>>>>>> doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
>>>>>> <http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf> (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
>>>>>> The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at
>>>>>> the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data
>>>>>> published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there
>>>>>> should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
>>>>>> Our observing system is inadequate.
>>>>>> That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People
>>>>>> like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly
>>>>>> correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the
>>>>>> change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The
>>>>>> PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino. The PDO
>>>>>> index became positive in September for first time since Sept
>>>>>> 2007. see
>>>>>> http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
>>>>>> Kevin
>>>>>> Michael Mann wrote:
>>>>>>> extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on
>>>>>>> BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard
>>>>>>> Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I
>>>>>>> can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met
>>>>>>> Office.
>>>>>>> We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile
>>>>>>> it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say
>>>>>>> about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?
>>>>>>> mike
>>>>>>> On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural
>>>>>>>> variability and signal to noise and sampling errors to
>>>>>>>> this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an
>>>>>>>> El Nino year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their
>>>>>>>> temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few tenths of a Watt
>>>>>>>> per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be
>>>>>>>> another dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard
>>>>>>>> someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet alot
>>>>>>>> of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the
>>>>>>>> past 10 years of global mean temperature trend stasis
>>>>>>>> still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000
>>>>>>>> year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in
>>>>>>>> big retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do
>>>>>>>> need to straighten this out as my student suggests below.
>>>>>>>> Such "fun", Cheers, Steve
>>>>>>>> Stephen H. Schneider
>>>>>>>> Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary
>>>>>>>> Environmental Studies,
>>>>>>>> Professor, Department of Biology and
>>>>>>>> Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
>>>>>>>> Mailing address:
>>>>>>>> Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
>>>>>>>> 473 Via Ortega
>>>>>>>> Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>>>>> F: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>>>>> Websites: climatechange.net
>>>>>>>> patientfromhell.org
>>>>>>>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>>>>>>>> From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>>>>> <mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>>>>>>> To: "Stephen H Schneider" <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>>>>> <mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
>>>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00
>>>>>>>> US/Canada Pacific
>>>>>>>> Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
>>>>>>>> Steve,
>>>>>>>> You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC

Original Filename: 1255558867.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails

From: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: 14 Oct 2009 18:21:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Philip D. Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Jim Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Tom, with respect to the difference between the models and the data, the
fundamental issue on short time scales is the magnitude of the internal
variability. Using the full CMIP3 ensemble at least has multiple
individual realisations of that internal variability and so is much more
suited to a comparison with a short period of observations. MAGICC is
great at the longer time scale, but its neglect of unforced variability
does not make it useful for these kinds of comparison.

The kind of things we are hearing "no model showed a cooling", the "data
is outside the range of the models" need to be addressed directly.

Gavin

On Wed, 2xxx xxxx xxxxat 18:06, Michael Mann wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> thanks for the comments. well, ok. but this is the full CMIP3
> ensemble, so at least the plot is sampling the range of choices
> regarding if and how indirect effects are represented, what the cloud
> radiative feedback & sensitivity is, etc. across the modeling
> community. I'm not saying that these things necessarily cancel out
> (after all, there is an interesting and perhaps somewhat disturbing
> compensation between indirect aerosol forcing and sensitivity across
> the CMIP3 models that defies the assumption of independence), but if
> showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine
> what sort of comparison wouldn't be deceptive (your point re MAGICC
> notwithstanding),
>
> perhaps Gavin has some further comments on this (it is his plot after
> all),
>
> mike
>
> On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Tom Wigley wrote:
> > Mike,
> >
> > The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical
> > runs with PCM look as though they match observations -- but the
> > match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low
> > climate sensitivity -- compensating errors. In my (perhaps too
> > harsh)
> > view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
> > results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
> > results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
> > here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
> > forcing assumptions/uncertainties.
> >
> > Tom.
> >
> > +++++++++++++++++++
> >
> > Michael Mann wrote:
> > > thanks Tom,
> > > I've taken the liberty of attaching a figure that Gavin put
> > > together the other day (its an update from a similar figure he
> > > prepared for an earlier RealClimate post. see:
> > > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/). It is indeed worth a thousand words, and drives home Tom's point below. We're planning on doing a post on this shortly, but would be nice to see the Sep. HadCRU numbers first,
> > > mike
> > > On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:01 AM, Tom Wigley wrote:
> > > > Dear all,
> > > > At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the
> > > > recent
> > > > lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to
> > > > look at
> > > > the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic
> > > > trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second
> > > > is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the
> > > > observed data.
> > > > Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The
> > > > second
> > > > method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.
> > > > These sums complement Kevin's energy work.
> > > > Kevin says ... "The fact is that we can't account for the lack
> > > > of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". I
> > > > do not
> > > > agree with this.
> > > > Tom.
> > > > +++++++++++++++++++++++
> > > > Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> > > > > Hi all
> > > > > Well I have my own article on where the heck is global
> > > > > warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have
> > > > > broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
> > > > > record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days
> > > > > was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> > > > > previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F
> > > > > and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
> > > > > This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game
> > > > > was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below
> > > > > freezing weather).
> > > > > Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change
> > > > > planning: tracking Earth's global energy. /Current Opinion in
> > > > > Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
> > > > > doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
> > > > > <http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final.pdf> (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
> > > > > The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at
> > > > > the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data
> > > > > published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there
> > > > > should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
> > > > > Our observing system is inadequate.
> > > > > That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People
> > > > > like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly
> > > > > correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the
> > > > > change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn't decadal. The
> > > > > PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino. The PDO
> > > > > index became positive in September for first time since Sept
> > > > > 2007. see
> > > > > http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/ocean_briefing_gif/global_ocean_monitoring_current.ppt
> > > > > Kevin
> > > > > Michael Mann wrote:
> > > > > > extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on
> > > > > > BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard
> > > > > > Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I
> > > > > > can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met
> > > > > > Office.
> > > > > > We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile
> > > > > > it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say
> > > > > > about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?
> > > > > > mike
> > > > > > On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:32 AM, Stephen H Schneider wrote:
> > > > > > > Hi all. Any of you want to explain decadal natural
> > > > > > > variability and signal to noise and sampling errors to
> > > > > > > this new "IPCC Lead Author" from the BBC? As we enter an
> > > > > > > El Nino year and as soon, as the sunspots get over their
> > > > > > > temporary--presumed--vacation worth a few tenths of a Watt
> > > > > > > per meter squared reduced forcing, there will likely be
> > > > > > > another dramatic upward spike like 1xxx xxxx xxxx. I heard
> > > > > > > someone--Mike Schlesinger maybe??--was willing to bet alot
> > > > > > > of money on it happening in next 5 years?? Meanwhile the
> > > > > > > past 10 years of global mean temperature trend stasis
> > > > > > > still saw what, 9 of the warmest in reconstructed 1000
> > > > > > > year record and Greenland and the sea ice of the North in
> > > > > > > big retreat?? Some of you observational folks probably do
> > > > > > > need to straighten this out as my student suggests below.
> > > > > > > Such "fun", Cheers, Steve
> > > > > > > Stephen H. Schneider
> > > > > > > Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary
> > > > > > > Environmental Studies,
> > > > > > > Professor, Department of Biology and
> > > > > > > Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
> > > > > > > Mailing address:
> > > > > > > Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
> > > > > > > 473 Via Ortega
> > > > > > > Ph: xxx xxxx xxxx
> > > > > > > F: xxx xxxx xxxx
> > > > > > > Websites: climatechange.net
> > > > > > > patientfromhell.org
> > > > > > > ----- Forwarded Message -----
> > > > > > > From: "Narasimha D. Rao" <ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> > > > > > > <mailto:ndrao@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
> > > > > > > To: "Stephen H Schneider" <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> > > > > > > <mailto:shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>>
> > > > > > > Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:25:53 AM GMT -08:00
> > > > > > > US/Canada Pacific
> > > > > > > Subject: BBC U-turn on climate
> > > > > > > Steve,
> > > > > > > You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC