The below are part of a series of alleged emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, released on 20 November 2009.
Original Filename: 932773964.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Sarah Raper <s.raper@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: tar13@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Chapter 13 review
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 19:52:44 +0100
Cc: mnoguer@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, pvanderlinden@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
COMMENTS ON CH. 13 (SCENARIOS) FROM TOM WIGLEY
(Page and line numbers are from the May 14 zero order draft.)
*****************************************************************
Dear contributors to Ch. 13,
Here are my comments on your chapter. I think you all know me
well enough that you will not be offended by my occasional
bluntness. The chapter needs a lot of work (not surprisingly),
but it has at least touched most of the bases. It suffers from
a lack of overview perspective, making the detail hard to wade
through. I was disturbed by the lack of credit given to
MAGICC/SCENGEN, since this software already addresses many of the
key issues that arise in scenario development.
Apologies for not proof reading this. By the time I got to the
end of typing it, I'd had enough.
*****************************************************************
Page 3 (lines 86-89) : Critically, this information doesn't give
a full assessment of uncertainties.
3 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : Sentence too long.
3 (1xxx xxxx xxxx: State 'illuminate uncertainty' earlier, since this
is a primary purpose of, e.g., MAGICC/SCENGEN.
3 (1xxx xxxx xxxx: 'indeterminate' is far too strong.
4 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : Not clear.
4 (1xxx xxxx xxxx: What is 'integrated assessment'? Define and/or
explain earlier.
5 (1xxx xxxx xxxx: Clumsy grammar.
5 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : Silly! Scenarios per se do not have ANY uncertainty
associated with them, by definition. They are, however, a very
(if not the most) useful tool for assessing and quantifying
uncertainties. For example, a primary purpose of MAGICC/SCENGEN
is to quantify uncertainties. Major text revision is needed to
clarify this point.
Part of the problem here is that the boundary between scenarios
and predictions/projections is indistinct (as is the distinction
between predictions and projections -- this too needs to be
clarified). One could argue that 'scenarios' developed using
MAGICC/SCENGEN are actually better predictions of some aspects
of future climate change than any O/AGCM results. Certainly,
'scenarios' based on scaling are much more than just scenarios
as defined here -- they are true predictions, based on some
assumed scenario (this is the correct word here!) for future
emissions.
Substantial work is required to the present text to clarify
these issues -- they are the crux of the matter.
5 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : Note earlier that scenarios (a word I will continue
to use even though it may be inappropriate in many cases)
usually define CHANGES in climate. They are not, in these
cases, 'scenarios', but 'scenarios of change'. Strict (i.e.,
absolute) scenarios are then constructed from them by adding
the changes to a baseline climatology. This needs to be
explained up front.
5 (1xxx xxxx xxxx: Delete '(and art)'. This is a derogatory term, likely
to be misinterpreted/misrepresented.
6 (2xxx xxxx xxxx: Comma after 'scenarios'. The text contains many
stylistic and grammatical errors (the most common being the
failure to isolate parenthetical clauses). I will assume that
someone with a better grasp of grammar will catch all these
at some stage, so I will not comment further on them.
6 (22xxx xxxx xxxx: A critical item missed here is inter-variable
consistency. Later, consistency between climate and CO2 is
mentioned; but there is no mention of consistency between, e.g.,
temperature and precipitation, etc. This is a major issue!
7 (2xxx xxxx xxxx: Instrumentally-based analogue scenarios were first
introduced by Wigley et al. (Nature, 1979). Credit should be
given. Also, the USDOE 'State of the Art (sic)' reports (1985)
and the Bolin et al. SCOPE report (1986) both review this and
other methods. This reviews should be cited.
7 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : What does 'extrapolating ...' mean?
7 (2xxx xxxx xxxx: Wigley et al. (1979) should also be cited here.
8 (3xxx xxxx xxxx: Nevertheless, they may do a better job of getting the
inter-variable correlations 'right' than GCMs!
8 (3xxx xxxx xxxx: Delete 'questionable'. This word is entirely unnecessary
here. More importantly, the authors need to be more careful in
their choice of words, since there are many critics out there who
will be looking for things that can be taken out of context,
misinterpreted, or misrepresented.
8 (xxx xxxx xxxx) : Control run? So what? This is only relevant if the
control is used in scenario development. This raises the issue
of 'Definition 1' versus 'Definition 2' for defining climate
change (a terminology introduced by Santer et al., 1994, JGR).
(Later, this difference is attributed to Cubasch et al., but
it was first clearly enuncited by Santer et al.) The difference
is whether or not one subtracts the control from the perturbed
result. More needs to be said about this. It is often assumed
that subtracting the control will remove any spurious drift in
the perturation experiment. This, of course, is clearly wishful
thinking, both a priori, and as shown by Raper and Cubasch (1996).
Basically, there is no way to reliably remove drift in a
perturbation experiment; which makes it all the more important
to have drift-free models. Flux adjustments do not necessarily
remove drift -- just look at some of the ECHAM control-run
results. There are some very important issues here, central to
the use of O/AGCMs in scenario generation. They need better
coverage. More is said later, but this is still inadequate.
9 (3xxx xxxx xxxx: Yes, they can be different, but so what? The issue is
whether the differences are statistically significant. To my
knowledge, no one has addressed this issue properly.
9 (3xxx xxxx xxxx: I'm sure (at least I hope) you don't mean 'observed'.
The issue is the difference between the equilibrium PATTERNS
of change and the MODELLED (NOT 'observed') transient patterns
of change.
9 (to 361) : You've missed the most inportant point! The advantage
of an equilibrium result over an O/AGCM result is that the
former is pure signal.
9 (to 376) : The Definition 1 versus Definition 2 issue is relevant
here.
9 (3xxx xxxx xxxx: Please don't propogate garbage. The issue here is
natural internally generated variability. There is no need for
such variability to be chaotic, so you should eschew use of
this word.
9 (to 387) : I presume here that you are talking about O/AGCMs.
You should not use just 'GCM' -- you must be specific. Also,
you've missed some vital points: the natural internal variability
problem (i.e., output is signal plus noise -- noted elsewhere,
but must be stated here); and the model-specific natureof the
climate sensitivity.
10(3xxx xxxx xxxx: Please give credit to the first work on this (Santer
et al., 1990). I should point out that this was actually my
idea.
10(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Totally unclear.
10(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Poor wording. Should be '.. to which changes are added'.
10(4xxx xxxx xxxx: Delete 'appropriate'.
10(4xxx xxxx xxxx: Insert 'based' after 'period'.
10(4xxx xxxx xxxx: 'weather generators' comes as a non sequitur here. In
any event, you haven't said what they are!
10(xxx xxxx xxxx) : So what? The issue is what period one is measuring the
impacts from. In most cases it will be some nominal 'present-day',
so the baseline climatology must refer to the same period.
Whether or not the period has some sulphate effect in it is
utterly irrelevant.
10(xxx xxxx xxxx) : What garbage. See above.
11(xxx xxxx xxxx) : More garbage -- think about it! The reason 1990 is
not so useful as a reference 'period' is because the impacts
variable is probably not adequately definable over a single
year. You have really messed up this issue.
11(4xxx xxxx xxxx: Yet more garbage! Given what I have tried to explain
above, it is ludicrous to consider daily data as part of the
baseline climatology. The impacts variable may require daily data
from a baseline period in order to define ITS reference level
(but probably not), but this is NOT the same thing. Either all
this is very badly worded, or you don't know what your doing.
11(4xxx xxxx xxxx: No!! Think about it!
11(4xxx xxxx xxxx: No!! This is NOT the reason.
11(4xxx xxxx xxxx: No!! Not 'observed' (which is past or present), but
FUTURE data.
11(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Duplication.
12(to 492) : This is a very confused paragraph.
12(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Wrong. For upper air, their is a major paper by Santer
et al. (JGR, 1999), which also touches on some surface issues.
There are also a number of papers by Trenberth that are relevant.
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: Again, introduction of an undefined term/concept
(downscaling).
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: At last, mention of changes. Sadly, it is inappropriate
here, since this is NOT the reason.
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: Why should this Figure be here?
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: Wrong. As a scenario, this could be justified. You are
confusing scenario (as you have defined it, which I have already
criticized) with prediction/projection.
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: See above.
12(xxx xxxx xxxx) : This is the Def. 1 vs Def. 2 issue. However, you have
the history and motivation wrong.
12(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Wrong. This issue has nothing to do with cold start vs
warm start; it is to get over the drift problem (which it fails
to do).
12(5xxx xxxx xxxx: Not 'especially'; mor appropriate may be 'but only'.
13(5xxx xxxx xxxx: 'were'; grammar!
13(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Not clear.
13(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Not clear.
13(xxx xxxx xxxx) : So what? Given your definition of scenario, this
doesn't matter.
14(5xxx xxxx xxxx: Why use 'perceived'?
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: This issue was first raised by Kim et al. (1987?).
It was first addressed in a credible manner by Wigley et al.
(1990).
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'appending' is a ridiculous word to use. Try 'adding'.
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'often' to 'usually'.
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'appended' to 'added'.
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'appended' to 'added'.
14(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'appended' to 'added'.
14(627,628) : Please cite the key initial papers by Kim et al. and
Wigley et al.
15(635,636) : Clumsy sentence.
15(6xxx xxxx xxxx: Isn't the word 'physical' usually used? The process
does not just involve dynamics.
15(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Mention of 1-way vs 2-way nesting needed here.
15(xxx xxxx xxxx) : You have failed to mention the most important reason
for using LAMs, orography/topography.
16(6xxx xxxx xxxx: Please cite the key initial papers by Kim et al. and
Wigley et al.
16(6xxx xxxx xxxx: 'predict and' to 'predictand'.
16(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Once again, you fail to mention the main advantage;
viz. that statistical downscaling involve real-world data and
so ensures that inter-variable relationships are realistic. Of
course, these relationships may change; but LAMs don't even get
the correct relationships for the present.
16(703)-17(716): These are VERY important results. They need far
greater emphasis.
17(7xxx xxxx xxxx: In Australia? Or anywhere for that matter.
17(xxx xxxx xxxx) : See, e.g., Wigley (1999 - Pew report- and material
cited therein).
17(7xxx xxxx xxxx: 'mulitple'?
17(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Not clear.
17(xxx xxxx xxxx) : This sentence sounds stupid. Rephrase.
17(7xxx xxxx xxxx: You cannot say 'most areas' and then cite only
agriculture cases.
17(7xxx xxxx xxxx: The first clear exposition of this is in the oft-cited
paper by Wigley (Nature, 1985). See also later paper in Climate
Monitor.
17(xxx xxxx xxxx) : I disagree. Both methods have strengths and weaknesses.
18(7xxx xxxx xxxx: At last! A definition of 'weather generators'.
18(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Unclear.
18(7xxx xxxx xxxx: What means 'more definitive'?
18(8xxx xxxx xxxx: "Wilk's" to "Wilks'".
18(8xxx xxxx xxxx: Hence, the work is irrelevant in the present context.
Delete irrelevant text.
19(to 821) : Most of the agriculture studies dealing with the
effects of variability changes are flawed since they fail to
separate the low-frequency effect of induced changes in
winter soil moisture levels from the specific effect of
within-growing-season variability changes.
19(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Since this should refer back to lines 823,824,
this whole section amounts to a giant non sequitur.
20(8xxx xxxx xxxx: One could be much stronger than this. The use of
high spatial resolution information is more than just
'warranted', it is absolutely essential. However, there is
another approach that you have failed to mention at all.
This is 'upscaling' of the impacts model. There is some
relevant work on this in papers by Jarvis and McNaughton
(and vice versa). Another related approach is the direct
modelling of spatial patterns of agricultural yield (as
in work by Wigley and Tu Qipu, which relates yield patterns
to climate patterns). Presumably one could apply a similar
approach to direct modelling of river flow. These approaches
complement the rather boring direct approach of downcsaling,
and they may well circumvent some of its problems.
20(8xxx xxxx xxxx: Under this comes: model errors; sensitivity
uncertainties; aerosol forcing uncertainties; lag uncer-
tainties, regionalization versus global-mean uncertainties.
21(9xxx xxxx xxxx: lesser or greater than what??
21(9xxx xxxx xxxx: 'adequacy' is not the right word; hoe about
'appropriateness'?
21(9xxx xxxx xxxx: I disagree. Re-analysis data for precipitation are
simply not good enough, and precipitation is the key variable
in most impact areas. Also, in the regions where scenario
data are most needed, real observational data are available.
Re-analyses largely provide useful new data in regions where
data are not needed. The authors seem not to have thought
this through.
21(to 931) : There are two papers by Wigley (conference
proceedings, edited by Hanisch) which address the issue of
the relative magnitudes of different sources of uncertainty
in global-mean projections (emissions, aerosol forcing,
carbon cycle, other trace gases, climate sensitivity).
These papers are singularly relevant to this section.
21(9xxx xxxx xxxx: Actually, the range for total emissions is from
7.9 to 29.0GtC/yr. For fossil CO2 emissions, the range is
6.5 to 28.8GtC/yr.
21(9xxx xxxx xxxx: Not just 'time-dependent evolution', but anything
that has a specific time attached to it.
22(9xxx xxxx xxxx: The reference to Alcamo et al. here seems either
perverse or ignorant. Recall that the topic is CLIMATE
scenarios. In this context, MAGICC/SCENGEN is FAR better
suited to exploring the consequences (right down the line)
of emissions 'uncertainties'.
22(xxx xxxx xxxx) : MAGICC/SCENGEN already does this at the global-mean
level. Furthermore, at least three O/AGCMs have fully embedded
sulphur cycles already.
22(9xxx xxxx xxxx: 'specifications' is the wrong word. These things
are NOT 'specified'.
22(9xxx xxxx xxxx: 'determine' to 'have'
22(9xxx xxxx xxxx: See also Wigley's Pew report (1999).
22(xxx xxxx xxxx) : Not straightforward? This really is utter garbage.
In MAGICC/SCENGEN, this is extremely easy and straightforward.
22(9xxx xxxx xxxx: Ah ha! The 1-way/2-way nesting issue surfaces at last!
22(xxx xxxx xxxx) : See above.
23(9xxx xxxx xxxx: Actually, this issue was first raised in Santer et al.
(1990). It has also been addressed in papers by Wigley and
Palutikof (probably before anyone else).
23(1xxx xxxx xxxx): The wording here is not quite right.
23(10xxx xxxx xxxx: First done in Santer et al. (1990).
23(10xxx xxxx xxxx: If one assumes stable patterns, which has been shown
to be okay for the CO2 component of change, then the SNR problem
can be minimized by using changes over a long time interval.
23(10xxx xxxx xxxx: This average response method was alluded to in
Santer et al. (1990). It was first implemented in ESCAPE and
later in MAGICC/SCENGEN. A good illustration of the method,
including some relevant discussion of it, is given in the
Wigley Pew report (1999). One of the critical aspects of this
method (which is not even mentioned here!) is that the results
must be normalized by the global-mean temperature before
averaging.
24(10xxx xxxx xxxx: Is this the ACACIA program run out of NCAR? This
program was established some years ago, and it would be
extremely confusing if there were two programs with the same
acronym.
24(10xxx xxxx xxxx: Not 'a few', but many -- CMIP1.
24(10xxx xxxx xxxx: 'rations' to 'ratios'.
24(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Not clear.
24(10xxx xxxx xxxx: What means 'non-standard forcing'? In my view, something
like IS92a forcing would be 'standard', whereas 1% compound CO2
is 'non-standard' (i.e., unrealistic and artificial).
24(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Really? Why? I think this statement is wrong. There
are a number of ways to determine SNR values from a single O/AGCM
run. (Note the continuing confusing use of 'GCM', instead of
O/AGCM.)
24(10xxx xxxx xxxx: I don't think 'uncertainties' is quite the right word
here. Input emissions scenarios, which are scenarios in the
strict sense of the word, do not directly address uncertainty
issues (although they can, with some trepidation and a not-
inconsiderable amount of ingenuity, be used to define
uncertainties). By the way, as far as I can see, the only
scenario development method/software that does address the
input and uncertainty issues is MAGICC/SCENGEN.
25(10xxx xxxx xxxx: Again, these are not the most appropriate references.
Key references are Santer et al. (1990), and papers on ESCAPE
and MAGICC/SCENGEN.
25(10xxx xxxx xxxx: What means 'annotation' here?
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Actually, it was my idea.
25(1105,1106): No! The key assumption is actually linear superposition.
This is the way that SO4 effects are handled. There are a number
of papers that show that this assumption works well for
temperature, and a paper by Ramaswamy and Chen in GRL that shows
that it works also for precipitation. The tricky thing for this
variable would be to prove statistically that it doesn't work.
Given the SNR, it would be very difficult to reject the null
hypothesis that P(A)+P(B)=P(A+B), where A,B are the forcings
and P(.) is the response pattern.
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Plus numerous other papers.
25(1112,1113): This is very galling. The method may have been used
in IMAGE, but they got it from ESCAPE, which goes back to
Santer et al. (1990). MAGICC/SCENGEN pushes the idea as far
as is possible. Schlesinger's COSMIC does things quite
similarly tp MAGICC/SCENGEN. (Schlesinger was a co-author of
the Santer et al. paper.)
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Not clear.
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: All you can say here is 'may not hold', not 'probably
does not hold'. Indeed, there are reasons to expect it to hold
quite well.
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Could begin new paragraph with 'Uncertainties'.
25(1123,1124): I think this statement is categorically wrong. MAGICC/
SCENGEN incorporates SO4 influences, as does COSMIC. There is
no evidence at all that the uncertainties are thereby amplified.
Indeed, there is evidence to the contrary (e.g. Penner et al.,
1997). Idle and unsupported speculations like this do nobody
any good.
25(1124,1125): I suspect you argument here would have to hinge on
the possible spatial effects of a THC slowdown or shutdown.
If so, say so. But, if this is the case, you must also note
that the latest non-flux-corrected O/AGCMs do not show these
major THC changes, and scaling approaches may well work out
very well for these situations, even in stabilization cases.
Please avoid jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions.
25(11xxx xxxx xxxx: I refereed this paper, and I judged it to be an
appalling display of ignorance. It should not be cited.
26(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Why is this Figure here?
26(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Ah ha! At last the normalization issue. This must
come much earlier.
26(1xxx xxxx xxxx): This is simply wrong. It is true that Ramaswamy and
Chen dreamed up a case with big hemispheric-scale responses
but little global-mean response, but this was totally
unrealistic. In all cases that I have looked at, using the
method employed by MAGICC/SCENGEN and COSMIC, this is simply
NOT a problem.
26(1147,1148): Again, this is just WRONG!
26(115xxx xxxx xxxx: Again, this is my idea, and it was first implemented
in MAGICC/SCENGEN. Please give credit where due.
26(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Isn't this ALWAYS the case. In other words, the
scaling method is almost universally applicable and useful.
26(1xxx xxxx xxxx): I do not think this has been proven.
26(1164,1165): There are other methods, too.
26(11xxx xxxx xxxx: Oh come on! Scaling handles MANY types of uncertainty
(perhaps all), not just 'one type'.
27(11xxx xxxx xxxx: 'documented' to 'quantified'?
27(to 1185) : etc., etc.
27(11xxx xxxx xxxx: MAGICC/SCENGEN allows the user to consider this issue
by providing data on global precipitation pattern correlations.
Indeed, this software was the first to consider this issue (in
spite of the Whetton and Pittock paper cited on line 1199).
27(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Very clumsy text.
27(1xxx xxxx xxxx): This is an issue we considered years ago in developing
ESCAPE and MAGICC/SCENGEN. The trouble with judging a model on
its regional performance is one of statistical significance.
It is much easier to get a good regional result by chance than
to get results that are good globally.
27(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Very clumsy text.
27(to 1214) : You have failed to mention a key issue. Is model skill
in simulating present-day climate a reliable indicator of its
skill in predicting future climate change? There is no evidence
to support this idea, although it does sound a priori reasonable.
You must at least raise the issue.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: Cite Morgan and Keith (1995) here.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: This is a critical point. It needs more emphasis.
28(123xxx xxxx xxxx: What about inter-variable consistency? This needs to
be discussed.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: 'the manifold' to 'possible'.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: Insert 'give' after 'chapters'.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: Not clear.
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: So what? It is almost certainly irrelevant unless the
CO2 changes are bigger than anything anticipated, or unless there
are nonlinear effects associated with THC changes (which looks
increasingly unlikely).
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: 'mimics'? You must be joking! How about 'approximates'?
28(12xxx xxxx xxxx: 'equal' (grammar).
28(1262,1263): How can smart people like this make such an elementary
mistake!
29(1280,1281): This does not seem to be an appropriate reference.
29(12xxx xxxx xxxx: 'albino' to 'albedo'.
29(12xxx xxxx xxxx: This sea level consistency issue was first addressed
by Wigley and Raper (Warrick et al. sea level book). It is,
of course, avoided in MAGICC/SCENGEN.
29(12xxx xxxx xxxx: 'dependable' to 'dependent'.
29(1xxx xxxx xxxx): A giant red herring! Maybe some ignorant people
produced inconsistent scenarios like this years ago, but the
issue was also resolved years ago. All you need to say is that
comprehensive software suites avoid these naive problems.
Concentrate on the strengths of existing methods/software;
don't reraise issues that were solved long ago.
29(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Another misleading red herring, that fails to reflect
the current state of the science. Global-mean responses to
aerosol forcing CAN be used to drive regional patterns. This
is just what is done in MAGICC/SCENGEN and COSMIC.
29(1310,1311): Not clear.
29(13xxx xxxx xxxx: Delete 'scenario'.
29(13xxx xxxx xxxx: 'to daily' to 'in daily'.
30(1329,1330): 'stimulated new techniques' Oh yeah? The MAGICC/SCENGEN
method has not changed in 7 years, and it still represents the
state of the science.
30(1332,1333): True, but you have not explained them very well. Could
you not have a summary Table that lists the strengths and
weaknesses of the various methods, including the direct use of
O/AGCM output. This would have helped you a lot in planning
and structuring this chapter. It can still help in revising it;
and be useful to readers.
30(1xxx xxxx xxxx): Not clear.
30(13xxx xxxx xxxx: You have mentioned this before, but you have failed
to tell us what it is or given any example. A mention alone is
valueless.
30(13xxx xxxx xxxx: What means 'semi-formal'. I thought it was a dress
protocol.
30(general) : A crucial need for scenarios (and for simple models)
is to expand the range of cases covered by O/AGCMs.
END *********************************************************************
******************************
* Dr. Sarah Raper *
* Climatic Research Unit *
* University of East Aglia *
* Norwich *
* NR4 7TJ *
* *
* Tel. xxx xxxx xxxx *
* Fax. xxx xxxx xxxx *
******************************
Original Filename: 1060002347.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Jim Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Barrie.Pittock@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "Neville Nicholls" <n.nicholls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: RE: Recent climate sceptic research and the journal Climate Research
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 09:05:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: n.nicholls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Peter.Whetton@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Roger.Francey@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, David.Etheridge@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Ian.Smith@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Simon.Torok@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Willem.Bouma@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, pachauri@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Greg.Ayers@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Rick.Bailey@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Graeme.Pearman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mmaccrac@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
Dear Jim,
Thanks for your continued interest and help w/ all this. It's nice to know that our friends
down under are doing their best to fight the misinformation. It is true that the skeptics
twist the truth clockwise rather than counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?
There was indeed a lot of activity last week. Hans Von Storch's resignation as chief editor
of CR, which I think took a lot of guts, couldn't have come at a better time. It was on the
night before before the notorious "James Inhofe", Chair of the Senate "Environment and
Public Works Committee" attempted to provide a public stage for Willie Soon and David
Legates to peddle their garbage (the Soon & Baliunas junk of course, but also the usual
myths about the satellite record, 1940s-1970s cooling, "co2 is good for us" and "but water
vapor is the primary greenhouse gas!").
Fortunately, these two are clowns, neither remotely as sharp as Lindzen or as slick as
Michaels, and it wasn't too difficult to deal with them. Suffice it to say, the event did
*not* go the way Inhofe and the republicans had hoped. The democrats, conveniently, had
received word of Hans' resignation, but the republicans and Soon/Legates had not. So when,
quite fittingly, Jim Jeffords (you may remember--he's the U.S. senator who was in the news
a couple years ago for tilting the balance of power back to the democrats when he left the
republican party in protest) hit them with this news at the hearing, they were caught
completely off guard. The "Wall Street Journal" article you cited was icing on the cake.
Inhofe, who rails against the liberal media, will have a difficult time doing so against
the WSJ!
Also of interest to you (attached) might be the op-ed that Ray Bradley, Phil, and I have
written and submitted to the "Seattle News Tribune" in response to an op-ed by Baliunas
(also attached) that some industry group has been sending around to various papers over the
last week. Only two (Providence Journal and Seattle NT) have thusfar bitten...
There is a rumour that Harvard may have had enough w/ their name being dragged through the
mud by the activities of Baliunas and Soon, and that "something is up". Baliunas and Soon,
as alluded to in the WSJ article, are now no longer talking to the media. Will keep you
posted on that...
mike
At 03:58 PM 8/4/2003 +1200, Jim Salinger wrote:
Dear Mike et al
I also share Neville's thanks to you all for the reasoned and evaluated responses over
the last few months. They have been good, and separated out 'academic standards'
from 'academic freedom', which we have to be careful not to abuse.
I also note the following, come through over the weekend from the Wall Street Journal
(below) and would also compliment those of you who, with Hans Von Storch resigned
your editorships when information that should be published was clearly supressed.
If you have further information that you feel free to share on last week's events then
we
in New Zealand would appreciate hearing it, as we have been extremely concerned
about academic standards in the reviewing of articles from New Zealand sources.
Again thanks to all on your stands.
Best regards
Jim
>>>> July 31, 2003
>>>> DEBATING GLOBAL WARMING
>>>>
>>>> Global Warming Skeptics
>>>> Are Facing Storm Clouds
>>>>
>>>> By ANTONIO REGALADO
>>>> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>>>>
>>>> A big flap at a little scientific journal is raising questions about
>>>> a study that has been embraced by conservative politicians for its
>>>> rejection of widely held global-warming theories.
>>>>
>>>> The study, by two astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
>>>> Astrophysics, says the 20th century wasn't unusually warm compared
>>>> with earlier periods and contradicts evidence indicating man-made
>>>> "greenhouse" gases are causing temperatures to rise.
>>>>
>>>> Since being published last January in Climate Research, the paper has
>>>> been widely promoted by Washington think tanks and cited by the White
>>>> House in revisions made to a recent Environmental Protection Agency
>>>> report. At the same time, it has drawn stinging rebukes from other
>>>> climate scientists.
>>>>
>>>> This week, three editors of Climate Research resigned in protest over
>>>> the journal's handling of the review process that approved the study;
>>>> among them is Hans von Storch, the journal's recently appointed
>>>> editor in chief. "It was flawed and it shouldn't have been
>>>> published," he said.
>>>>
>>>> Dr. von Storch's resignation was publicly disclosed Tuesday by Sen.
>>>> James Jeffords (I., Vt.), a critic of the administration's
>>>> environmental policies, during a hearing of the Senate Environment
>>>> and Public Works Committee called by its chairman, Sen. James Inhofe
>>>> (R., Okla.).
>>>>
>>>> The debate over global warming centers on the extent to which gases
>>>> released from the burning of fossil fuels -- mainly carbon dioxide --
>>>> are trapping the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere, creating a
>>>> greenhouse effect. The political fight has intensified as the Senate
>>>> votes on a major energy bill. Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and
>>>> Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) planned to introduce an amendment this
>>>> week that would cap carbon-dioxide emissions at 2000 levels starting
>>>> in 2010 for select industries. The Bush administration is opposed to
>>>> imposing caps, and the measure isn't expected to become law.
>>>>
>>>> The Harvard study has become part of skeptics' arguments. Mr. Inhofe,
>>>> who is leading the opposition to the emissions measures, cited the
>>>> research in a speech on the Senate floor Monday in which he said,
>>>> "the claim that global warming is caused by man-made emissions is
>>>> simply untrue and not based on sound science."
>>>>
>>>> The paper was authored by astronomers Willie Soon and Sallie
>>>> Baliunas, and looked at studies of tree rings and other indicators of
>>>> past climate. Their basic conclusion: The 20th century wasn't the
>>>> warmest century of the past 1,000 years. They concluded temperatures
>>>> may have been higher during the "Medieval Warm Period," the time
>>>> during which the Norse settled Greenland.
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Soon couldn't be reached and Dr. Baliunas declined comment. In
>>>> his testimony before Mr. Inhofe's committee, Dr. Soon reiterated the
>>>> findings of his study, which was partly funded by the American
>>>> Petroleum Institute.
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Soon's findings contradict widely cited research by another
>>>> scientist, Michael E. Mann of the University of Virginia. Dr. Mann's
>>>> reconstruction of global temperatures shows a distinct pattern shaped
>> >> like a hockey stick: Temperatures stayed level for centuries, with a
>>>> sudden upturn during recent decades.
>>>>
>>>> A reference to Dr. Soon's paper previously found its way into
>>>> revisions suggested by the White House to an EPA report on
>>>> environmental quality. According to an internal EPA memorandum
>>>> disclosed in June, agency scientists were concerned the version
>>>> containing the White House edits "no longer accurately represents
>>>> scientific consensus on climate change." Dr. Mann's data showing the
>>>> hockey-stick temperature curve was deleted. In its place,
>>>> administration officials added a reference to Dr. Soon's paper, which
>>>> the EPA memo called "a limited analysis that supports the
>>>> administration's favored message."
>>>>
>>>> The EPA says the memo appears to be an internal e-mail between
>>>> staffers but isn't an "official" document. A spokesman at the White
>>>> House's Council on Environmental Quality says the addition of the
>>>> citation to Dr. Soon's paper to the draft report was suggested during
>>>> an interagency review process overseen by the White House.
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Mann and 13 colleagues published a critique of Dr. Soon's paper
>>>> in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, this month.
>>>> They said the Harvard team's methods were flawed and their results
>>>> "inconsistent with the preponderance of scientific evidence."
>>>>
>>>> Then, last week Dr. von Storch was contacted by Sen. Jeffords's
>>>> staff, which was looking into the paper in preparation for Tuesday's
>>>> hearing, where Dr. Soon and Dr. Mann were scheduled to appear. After
>>>> hearing from Sen. Jeffords, Dr. von Storch says he decided to speed
>>>> an editorial into print criticizing publication of the paper.
>>>>
>>>> But publisher Otto Kinne blocked the move, saying that while he
>>>> favored publication of the editorial, Dr. von Storch's proposals were
>>>> still opposed by some of the other editors. "I asked Hans not to rush
>>>> the editorial," Mr. Kinne said in an e-mail.
>>>>
>>>> That is when Dr. von Storch resigned, followed by two other editors.
>>>>
>>>> --John J. Fialka contributed to this article.
On 30 Jul 2003 at 8:26, Neville Nicholls wrote:
> Dear Mike et al:
>
> Despite my reluctance to get involved in preparing a public response
> to the SB03 papers, and my feeling that we would be better off
> ignoring it, I have to record my appreciation of the job you have done
> in preparing the EOS 8 July commentary. I thought it was an excellent,
> scientific, calm evaluation of SB03. Fortuitously, it arrived the same
> day I had to prepare a brief about SB03 for my political masters. It
> was very helpful to have your commentary to include in this brief.
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Neville Nicholls
> Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre
> PO Box 1289K, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, 3001
> Street address: 13th floor, 150 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA,
> 3000 Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx; Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
>
********************************************
Dr Jim Salinger, CRSNZ Tel: xxx xxxx xxxx
NIWA Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
P O Box xxx xxxx xxxx, (269 Khyber Pass Road) e-mail: j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Newmarket, Auckland,
New Zealand
****************************************************************************************
***
______________________________________________________________
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.shtml
Attachment Converted: "c:eudoraattachSeattleNewsTribune-oped-final.doc" Attachment
Converted: "c:eudoraattachBaliunasProvidenceJournal25Jul03.pdf"
References
1. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
Original Filename: 1065636937.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Fwd: EOS: Soon et al reply
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 14:15:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Thanks Tom,
In fact, I'm almost done with a brief (<750 word) response that addresses all of these
issues, and I'll be looking forward to comments on this. Hope to send it out later today,
mike
At 12:05 PM 10/8/2xxx xxxx xxxx, Tom Wigley wrote:
Folks,
I agree with Kevin that any response should be brief.
On the second page of their comment, SBL quote some of the caveat statements in their
earlier papers. The irony is that they do not heed their own caveats. If taken
literally, all these proxy data problems would mean that one can draw no conclusions
about the existence or otherwise of the MWE or LIA as global phenomena. This is what we
say (I hope -- at least I have said this in the paper cited belowxxx xxxx xxxxbut our over-bold
skeptics say that these anomalous intervals *did* exist. You can't have it both ways --
and basically what BS are doing is a confidence trick.
What is still needed here is an analysis of the BS method to show that it could be used
to prove anything they wanted.
I am still concerned about 'our' dependence on treerings. Are our results really
dependent on one region pre 1400 as SNL state? Is the problem of nonclimate obfuscating
factors in the 20th century enough to screw up calibrations on moderate to long
timescales? If not, we need to state and document this clearly. Does this problem apply
to both widths and densities? Are the borehole data largely garbage? I recall a paper of
Mike's on this issue that I refereed last year -- and there was something in GRL (I
think) very recently pointing out some serious potential problems.
Finally, did we really say what SBL claim we did in their p. 1 point (2)? Surely the
primary motive for all of this paleo work is that it DOES have a bearing on
human-induced climate effects?
Tom.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++==
Michael E. Mann wrote:
Thanks Kevin,
I agree w/ your take on this. We need to come up with a short, but powerful rebuttal.
According to Judy Jacobs, we're only allowed 750 words, so we will need to be even more
sparing and precise in our words that in the original Eos piece. By the way, we have 3
weeks to submit (i.e., our response is due October 27).
We need to focus on the key new claims, while simply dismissing, by reference to earlier
writings, the recycled ones. The Kalnay et al paper seems to be the new darling of the
contrarians, and you're precise wording on this will be very helpful. Phil, Tim and
others should be able to put to rest, in one or two sentences, the myths about urban
heat bias on the CRU record. A few words from Malcolm and Keith on the biological tree
growth effects would help too. The comments on the various paleo figures are confusing
and inconsistent, but from what I can tell, just plain wrong. I'll draft some words on
that.
I'll just continue to assimilate info and suggestions from everyone over the next week
or so, and then try to put this in the form a rough draft rebuttal to send out.
Thanks for your quick reply. Looking forward to hearing back from others,
mike
At 09:16 AM 10/6/2xxx xxxx xxxx, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
Hi Mike et al
Firstly, you should know that comments by myself and the group at NCDC (Vose et al) on
the Kalnay and Cai Nature paper were accepted (after a rebuttal and review process), and
then fine tuned. But it is a slow process and Kalnay and Cai have yet to finalize their
rebuttal. I am attaching FYI the "final" version of my comment. NCDC deals with the
problems with the records.
My reaction to the reply is as follows:
The first page deals with comments on proxy records and their problems. I think we
should agree that there are issues with proxy records, they are not the same as
instrumental records (which have their own problems), but they are all we have.
However, some are better than others (e.g. borehole) and annual or better resolution is
highly desirable in particular to make sure that anomalies are synchronous. The records
are not really the issue here, it is there use (and abuse).
There are several charges about only US or Northern Europe that can be quickly dealt
with. However the main points are on p 2.
We know from the observational record that global or hemispheric means are typically
small residuals of large anomalies of opposite signs so that large warm spots occur
simultaneously with large cold regions (witness last winter).
This fact means that we need high temporal resolution (annual or better) AND an ability
to compute hemispheric averages based on a network. The Soon and Baliunas approach
fails dismally on both of these critical points.
BS point out that Fig 2 of Mann and Jones show some temperatures as high as those in the
20th C. (They are wrong, do they mean Fig 2 of
M03?) You can counter that by looking at China where this is far from true.
I would be inclined to respond with a fairly short minimalist but powerful rebuttal,
focussing mostly on the shortcomings of BS and not defending the M03 and other records.
It should point out (again) that their methodolgy is fundamentally flawed and their
conclusions are demonstrably wrong. For this, the shorter the better.
Regards
Kevin
Michael E. Mann wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
Sorry to have to bother you all with this-- I know how busy our schedules are, and this
comes at an unfortunately busy time for many of us I would guss. But I think we *do*
have to respond, and I'm hoping that the response can be, again, something we all sign
our names to.
I've asked Ellen for further guidance on the length limits of our response, and the due
date for our response. The criticisms are remarkably weak, and easy to reply to in my
view. S&B have thus unwittingly, in my view, provided us with a further opportunity to
expose the most egregious of the myths perpetuated by the contrarians (S&B have managed
to cram them all in there) in the format of a response to their comment.
THeir comment includes a statement about how the article is all based on Mann et al
[1999] which is pretty silly given what is stated in the article, and what is shown in
Figure 1. It would be appropriate to begin our response by pointing out this obvious
straw man.
Then there is some nonsense about the satellite record and urban heat islands that Phil,
Kevin, and Tom W might in particular want to speak to. And Malcolm and Keith might like
to speak to the comments on the supposed problems due to non-biological tree growth
effects (which even if they were correctly described, which they aren't, have little
relevance to several of the reconstructions shown, and all of the model simulation
results shown). There is one paragraph about Mann and Jones [2003] which is right from
the Idsos' "Co2 science" website, and Phil and I and Tim Osborn and others have already
spoken too. I will draft a short comment on that.
I'd like to solicit individual comments, sentences or paragraphs, etc. from each of you
on the various points raised, and begin to assimilate this into a "response". I'll let
you know as soon as I learn from Ellen how much space we have to work with.
Sorry for the annoyance. I look forward to any contributions you can each provide
towards a collective response.
Thanks,
mike
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2003 08:23:xxx xxxx xxxx
To: Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> <[1]mailto:ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<[2]mailto:rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[3]mailto:k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Crowley, "Malcolm Hughes" <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[4]mailto:mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<[5]mailto:omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[6]mailto:t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>
<[7]mailto:jto@u.arizona.edu>, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[8]mailto:srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[9]mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<[10]mailto:wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> <[11]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Fwd: EOS: Soon et al reply
Comments?
Mike
Delivered-To: mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[12]mailto:mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 12:33:xxx xxxx xxxx
From: Ellen Mosley-Thompson <thompson.4@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> <[13]mailto:thompson.4@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: EOS: Soon et al reply
X-Sender: ethompso@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<[14]mailto:ethompso@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> <[15]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Cc: lzirkel@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[16]mailto:lzirkel@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, jjacobs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<[17]mailto:jjacobs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.0.0.22
Dear Dr. Mann (and co-authors of the Forum piece that appeared in EOS),
Dr. Willie Soon and his co-authors have submitted a reply to your Forum piece that I
have accepted. Let me outline below the official AGU procedure for replies so that you
know the options available. I have sent these same instructions to Dr. Soon.
As you wrote the original piece you now have the opportunity to see their comment
(attached) on your Forum piece. You may decide whether or not to send a reply. If you
choose not to reply - their reply will be published alone.
Should you decide to reply then your response will be published along with their comment
on your paper. One little twist is that if you submit a reply, they are allowed to see
the reply, but they can't comment on it. They have two options: they can let both
their and your comments go forward and be published together or (after viewing your
reply) they also have the option of withdrawing their comment. In the latter case, then
neither their comment or your reply to the comment will be published. Yes this is a
little contorted, but these are the instructions that I received from Judy Jacobs at
AGU.
I have attached the pdf of their comment. Please let me know within the next week
whether you and your colleagues plan to prepare a reply. If so, then you would have
several weeks to do this.
I have copied Lee Zirkel and Judy Jacobs of AGU as this paper is out of the ordinary and
I want to be sure that I am handling all this correctly.
I look forward to hearing from you regarding your decision on a reply.
Best regards,
Ellen Mosley-Thompson
EOS, Editor
cc: Judy Jacobs and Lee Zirkel
attachment
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <[18]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx > Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX:
(4xxx xxxx xxxx
[19]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 <[20]mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx > Phone: (4xxx xxxx xxxxFAX:
(4xxx xxxx xxxx
[21]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
-- ****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<[22]mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Climate Analysis Section, NCAR [23]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/
<[24]http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/>
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80303
______________________________________________________________
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
[25]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
[26]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
References
1. mailto:ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. mailto:rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. mailto:k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. mailto:omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. mailto:t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
7. mailto:jto@u.arizona.edu
8. mailto:srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
9. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
10. mailto:wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
12. mailto:mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
13. mailto:thompson.4@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
14. mailto:ethompso@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
15. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
16. mailto:lzirkel@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
17. mailto:jjacobs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
18. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
19. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
20. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
21. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
22. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
23. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/
24. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/
25. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
26. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
Original Filename: 1089318616.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:xxx xxxx xxxx
Mike,
Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY - don't pass on. Relevant paras are the last
2 in section 4 on p13. As I said it is worded carefully due to Adrian knowing Eugenia
for years. He knows the're wrong, but he succumbed to her almost pleading with him
to tone it down as it might affect her proposals in the future !
I didn't say any of this, so be careful how you use it - if at all. Keep quiet also
that you have the pdf.
The attachment is a very good paper - I've been pushing Adrian over the last weeks
to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also
for ERA-40. The basic message is clear - you have to put enough surface and sonde
obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand
out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.
The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also
losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see
it.
I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep
them
out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
Cheers
Phil
Mike,
For your interest, there is an ECMWF ERA-40 Report coming out soon, which
shows that Kalnay and Cai are wrong. It isn't that strongly worded as the first author
is a personal friend of Eugenia. The result is rather hidden in the middle of the report.
It isn't peer review, but a slimmed down version will go to a journal. KC are wrong
because
the difference between NCEP and real surface temps (CRU) over eastern N. America doesn't
happen with ERA-40. ERA-40 assimilates surface temps (which NCEP didn't) and doing
this makes the agreement with CRU better. Also ERA-40's trends in the lower atmosphere
are all physically consistent where NCEP's are not - over eastern US.
I can send if you want, but it won't be out as a report for a couple of months.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Filename: 1177423054.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: FYI
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:57:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear Phil,
Sorry about the delay in replying to your email - I've been out of my
office for a few days.
This is really nasty stuff, and I'm sorry that it's happened to you. The
irony in this is that you are one of the most careful and thorough
scientists I know.
Keenan's allegations of research misconduct, although malicious and
completely unfounded, clearly require some response. The bottom line is
that there are uncertainties inherent in measuring ANY properties of the
real-world climate system. You've probably delved deeper than anyone
else on the planet into uncertainties in observed surface temperature
records. This would be well worth pointing out to Mr. Keenan. The whole
tenor of the web-site stuff and Keenan's garbage is that these folks are
scrupulously careful data analysts, and you are not. They conveniently
ignore all the pioneering work that you've done on identification of
inhomogeneities in surface temperature records. The response should
mention that you've spent much of your scientific career trying to
quantify the effects of such inhomogeneities, changing spatial coverage,
etc. on observed estimates of global-scale surface temperature change.
The bottom line here is that observational data are frequently "messy".
They are not the neat, tidy beasts Mr. Keenan would like them to be.
This holds not only for surface temperature measurements. It also holds
- in spades - for measurements of tropospheric temperature from MSU and
radiosondes, and for measurements of ocean temperatures from XBTs,
profiling floats, etc. We would like observing systems to be more
accurate, more stable, and better-suited for monitoring decadal-scale
changes in climate. You and Kevin and many other are actively working
towards that goal. The key message here is that, despite uncertainties
in the surface temperature record - uncertainties which you and others
in the field are well aware of, and have worked hard to quantify - it is
now unequivocal that surface temperatures have warmed markedly over the
past 100 years. Uncertainties in the station histories do not negate
this basic message.
Hope some of these random musings might be useful, Phil. Let me know if
there's anything else I can do to help. Will you be at the Hadley Centre
Science Review Group meeting in May?
With best regards,
Ben
P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote:
> All,
> Thanks for the thoughts. I'll muse on them whilst
> away. I've decided to ignore the blogs, but will wait
> till I hear from Wei-Chyung when he's back. There is
> no point yet in my responding to Keenan till Wei-Chyung
> hears.
> I'm away much of the next 3 weeks, so I won't be
> responding quickly. I'll be noting down some points
> for a possible response, so anything I'll do will
> be considered rather than my usual quick responses.
> The unequivocal statement in the SPM will be clear
> in any response.
> The whole tone of their argument smacks of a last
> resort challenge. 2007 continues warm for the first
> 3 months.
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>
>> I agree on the blogs: I have refrained from any responses to the attacks
>> on me wrt hurricanes etc.
>> K
>>
>>
>>> I don't disagree w/ Kevin's points here, but I do think it is
>>> dangerous to respond to an accusation made on a blog (a dubious
>>> one at that). It sets a bad precedent. On the other hand, since
>>> the letter to Wang was copied to you, I guess it is legitimate for
>>> you to respond to that. but very carefully as Kevin points out,
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>> Kevin Trenberth wrote: Hi Phil I am sure you know that this is not
>>> about the science. It is an attack to undermine the science in some
>>> way.
>>> In that regard I don't think you can ignore it all, as Mike suggests as
>>> one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys and
>>> lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes
>>> to
>>> construct such a database. Indeed technology and data handling
>>> capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble
>>> suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in
>>> some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothng better to do
>>> seems like a good thing to do. How about "I tried to get some data from
>>> McIntyre from his 1990 paper, but I was unable because he doesn't have
>>> such a paper because he has not done any constructive work!" There is
>>> no
>>> basis for retracting a paper given in Keenan's message. One may have to
>>> offer a correction that a particular sentence was not correct if it
>>> claimed something that indeed was not so. But some old instrumental data
>>> are like paleo data, and can only be used with caution as the metadata
>>> do
>>> not exist. It doesn't mean they are worthless and can not be used.
>>> Offering to make a correction to a few words in a paper in a trivial
>>> manner will undermine his case. Kevin Hi Phil, This is all
>>> too predictable. This crowd of charlatans is always looking for one
>>> thing
>>> they can harp on, where people w/ little knowledge of the facts might be
>>> able to be convinced that there is a controversy. They can't take on
>>> the
>>> whole of the science, so they look for one little thing they can say is
>>> wrong, and thus generalize that the science is entirely compromised. Of
>>> course, as nicely shown in the SPM, every landmass is independently
>>> warming, and much as the models predict. So they can harp all they want
>>> on one Chinese data set, it couldn't possibly change the big picture
>>> (let
>>> alone even the trends for China). The So they are simply hoping to blow
>>> this up to something that looks like a legitimate controversy. The last
>>> thing you want to do is help them by feeding the fire. Best thing is to
>>> ignore them completely. They no longer have their friends in power here
>>> in the U.S., and the media has become entirely unsympathetic to the
>>> rants
>>> of the contrarians at least in the U.S.--the Wall Street Journal
>>> editorial page are about the only place they can broadcast their
>>> disinformation. So in other words, for contrarians the environment
>>> appears to have become very unfavorable for development. I would advise
>>> Wang the same way. Keenan may or may not be bluffing, but if he tries
>>> this I believe that British law would make it easy for Wang to win a
>>> defamation suit against him (the burden is much tougher in the states),
>>> mike Phil Jones wrote: Kevin, Have a look at this
>>> web site. I see you're away. The websites can wait, but scroll down to
>>> the letter below from Keenan - the last sentence.
>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1471#comments and
>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1479#more-1479 One is about data from a
>>> paper 17 years ago (Jones et al. 1990) Also there is this email
>>> (below)
>>> sent to Wei-Chyung Wang, who was one of the co-authors on the 1990
>>> paper. Wei-Chyung is in China, and may not yet have seen this. When
>>> he's
>>> back in Albany, I've suggested he talks to someone there. It is all
>>> malicious. I've cc'd this to Ben and Mike as well, to get any thoughts
>>> from their experiences. If it gets worse I will bring Susan in as
>>> well,
>>> but I'm talking to some people at UEA first. Susan has enough to do
>>> with getting the AR4 WG1 volume out. On the 1990 paper, I have put the
>>> locations and the data for the rural stations used in the paper on the
>>> CRU website. All the language is about me not being able to send them
>>> the station data used for the grids (as used in 1990!). I don't have
>>> this information, as we have much more data now (much more in Australia
>>> and China than then) and probably more stations in western USSR are as
>>> well. As for the other request, I don't have the information on the
>>> sources of all the sites used in the CRUTEM3 database. We are adding in
>>> new datasets regularly (all of NZ from Jim Renwick recently) , but we
>>> don't keep a source code for each station. Almost all sites have
>>> multiple sources and only a few sites have single sources. I know
>>> things
>>> roughly by country and could reconstruct it, but it would take a while.
>>> GHCN and NCAR don't have source codes either. It does all come from
>>> the
>>> NMSs - well mostly, but some from scientists. A lot of the issues
>>> are
>>> in various papers, but they never read these. Also certainly no use
>>> talking to them. In Geneva all week. David Parker and Tom Peterson
>>> will be there. I can live with the web site abuse, but the Keenan
>>> letter knocked me back a bit. I seem to be the marked man now !
>>> Cheers Phil From: "D.J. Keenan" To: "Wei-Chyung Wang" Cc: "Phil
>>> Jones" Subject: retraction request Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:31:15
>>> +0100
>>> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028 X-UEA-Spam-Score: 0.0
>>> X-UEA-Spam-Level: / X-UEA-Spam-Flag: NO Dear Dr. Wang, Regarding the
>>> Chinese meteorological data analyzed by Wang et al. [GRL, 1990] and
>>> Jones
>>> et al. [Nature, 1990], it now seems clear that there are severe
>>> problems.
>>> In particular, the data was obtained from 84 meteorological stations
>>> that can be classified as follows. 49 have no histories 08 have
>>> inconsistent histories 18 have substantial relocations 02 have
>>> single-year relocations 07 have no relocations Furthermore, some of
>>> the relocations are very distant--over 20 km. Others are to greatly
>>> different environments, as illustrated here:
>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1323#comment-102970 The above
>>> contradicts
>>> the published claim to have considered the histories of the stations,
>>> especially for the 49 stations that have no histories. Yet the claim is
>>> crucial for the research conclusions. I e-mailed you about this on
>>> April
>>> 11th. I also phoned you on April 13th: you said that you were in a
>>> meeting and would get back to me. I have received no response. I ask
>>> you to retract your GRL paper, in full, and to retract the claims made
>>> in
>>> Nature about the Chinese data. If you do not do so, I intend to
>>> publicly
>>> submit an allegation of research misconduct to your university at
>>> Albany.
>>> Douglas J. Keenan http://www.informath.org phone xxx xxxx xxxx2 The
>>> Limehouse Cut, London E14 6N, UK Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research
>>> Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxxSchool of Environmental
>>> Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxxUniversity of East Anglia Norwich
>>> Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx NR4 7TJ UK
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -- Michael E. Mann Associate Professor Director, Earth
>>> System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology
>>> Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxxWalker Building FAX:
>>> (814)
>>> xxx xxxx xxxxThe Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>> University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
>>> ___________________ Kevin Trenberth Climate Analysis Section, NCAR PO
>>> Box
>>> 3000 Boulder CO 80307 ph xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
>>>
>>> -- Michael E. Mann Associate Professor Director, Earth System Science
>>> Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814)
>>> xxx xxxx xxxxWalker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> The
>>> Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park,
>>> PA 16xxx xxxx xxxxhttp://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
>>
>> ___________________
>> Kevin Trenberth
>> Climate Analysis Section, NCAR
>> PO Box 3000
>> Boulder CO 80307
>> ph xxx xxxx xxxx
>> http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
>>
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: 1177534709.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: FYI
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:58:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear Phil,
I looked at some of the stuff on the Climate Audit web site. I'd really
like to talk to a few of these "Auditors" in a dark alley. They seem to
have no understanding of how science is actually done - no appreciation
of the fact that uncertainty is an integral part of what we do. Once
again, just let me know how I can help....
It will be good to see you in Exeter. I'm looking forward to that. I'll
have two nights in London after the meeting, and am hoping to spend some
time wandering around the British Museum.
I met a very nice lady (Stephanie) while I was giving a series of
climate change lectures in Puerto Rico back in January. She's a
Professor at the University of San Francisco, and (fortuitously),
specializes in the policy implications of climate change, risk
assessment, etc. She also likes hiking and climbing. It's fun to "have a
life" again (as they say over here).
Best wishes to you and Ruth,
Ben
P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote:
> Ben,
> Thanks for the thoughts. I'm in Geneva at the moment,
> so have a bit of time to think. Possibly I'll
> get the raw data from GHCN and do some work to replace
> our adjusted data with these, then make the Raw
> (i.e. as transmitted by the NMSs). This will annoy them
> more, so may inflame the situation.
>
> Got some ideas/thoughts from Mike, Kevin and Gavin Schmidt.
>
> Some of the stuff on the Climat Audit web site is awful.
>
> Will also be talking to someone at UEA, is they have
> anything useful to say.
>
> Also talking to Wei-Chyung about how he'll respond.
>
> I will be in Exeter. Get back from Tarragona on the
> Weds am, so should be there for dinner on the first day.
>
> Lots of odd things going on at the HC by the way.
>
> See you in Exeter.
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>
>
>> Dear Phil,
>>
>> Sorry about the delay in replying to your email - I've been out of my
>> office for a few days.
>>
>> This is really nasty stuff, and I'm sorry that it's happened to you. The
>> irony in this is that you are one of the most careful and thorough
>> scientists I know.
>>
>> Keenan's allegations of research misconduct, although malicious and
>> completely unfounded, clearly require some response. The bottom line is
>> that there are uncertainties inherent in measuring ANY properties of the
>> real-world climate system. You've probably delved deeper than anyone
>> else on the planet into uncertainties in observed surface temperature
>> records. This would be well worth pointing out to Mr. Keenan. The whole
>> tenor of the web-site stuff and Keenan's garbage is that these folks are
>> scrupulously careful data analysts, and you are not. They conveniently
>> ignore all the pioneering work that you've done on identification of
>> inhomogeneities in surface temperature records. The response should
>> mention that you've spent much of your scientific career trying to
>> quantify the effects of such inhomogeneities, changing spatial coverage,
>> etc. on observed estimates of global-scale surface temperature change.
>>
>> The bottom line here is that observational data are frequently "messy".
>> They are not the neat, tidy beasts Mr. Keenan would like them to be.
>> This holds not only for surface temperature measurements. It also holds
>> - in spades - for measurements of tropospheric temperature from MSU and
>> radiosondes, and for measurements of ocean temperatures from XBTs,
>> profiling floats, etc. We would like observing systems to be more
>> accurate, more stable, and better-suited for monitoring decadal-scale
>> changes in climate. You and Kevin and many other are actively working
>> towards that goal. The key message here is that, despite uncertainties
>> in the surface temperature record - uncertainties which you and others
>> in the field are well aware of, and have worked hard to quantify - it is
>> now unequivocal that surface temperatures have warmed markedly over the
>> past 100 years. Uncertainties in the station histories do not negate
>> this basic message.
>>
>> Hope some of these random musings might be useful, Phil. Let me know if
>> there's anything else I can do to help. Will you be at the Hadley Centre
>> Science Review Group meeting in May?
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx wrote:
>>> All,
>>> Thanks for the thoughts. I'll muse on them whilst
>>> away. I've decided to ignore the blogs, but will wait
>>> till I hear from Wei-Chyung when he's back. There is
>>> no point yet in my responding to Keenan till Wei-Chyung
>>> hears.
>>> I'm away much of the next 3 weeks, so I won't be
>>> responding quickly. I'll be noting down some points
>>> for a possible response, so anything I'll do will
>>> be considered rather than my usual quick responses.
>>> The unequivocal statement in the SPM will be clear
>>> in any response.
>>> The whole tone of their argument smacks of a last
>>> resort challenge. 2007 continues warm for the first
>>> 3 months.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Phil
>>>
>>>> I agree on the blogs: I have refrained from any responses to the
>>>> attacks
>>>> on me wrt hurricanes etc.
>>>> K
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I don't disagree w/ Kevin's points here, but I do think it is
>>>>> dangerous to respond to an accusation made on a blog (a dubious
>>>>> one at that). It sets a bad precedent. On the other hand, since
>>>>> the letter to Wang was copied to you, I guess it is legitimate for
>>>>> you to respond to that. but very carefully as Kevin points out,
>>>>>
>>>>> mike
>>>>>
>>>>> Kevin Trenberth wrote: Hi Phil I am sure you know that this is not
>>>>> about the science. It is an attack to undermine the science in some
>>>>> way.
>>>>> In that regard I don't think you can ignore it all, as Mike suggests
>>>>> as
>>>>> one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys
>>>>> and
>>>>> lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes
>>>>> to
>>>>> construct such a database. Indeed technology and data handling
>>>>> capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble
>>>>> suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in
>>>>> some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothng better to do
>>>>> seems like a good thing to do. How about "I tried to get some data
>>>>> from
>>>>> McIntyre from his 1990 paper, but I was unable because he doesn't have
>>>>> such a paper because he has not done any constructive work!" There is
>>>>> no
>>>>> basis for retracting a paper given in Keenan's message. One may have
>>>>> to
>>>>> offer a correction that a particular sentence was not correct if it
>>>>> claimed something that indeed was not so. But some old instrumental
>>>>> data
>>>>> are like paleo data, and can only be used with caution as the metadata
>>>>> do
>>>>> not exist. It doesn't mean they are worthless and can not be used.
>>>>> Offering to make a correction to a few words in a paper in a trivial
>>>>> manner will undermine his case. Kevin Hi Phil, This is
>>>>> all
>>>>> too predictable. This crowd of charlatans is always looking for one
>>>>> thing
>>>>> they can harp on, where people w/ little knowledge of the facts might
>>>>> be
>>>>> able to be convinced that there is a controversy. They can't take on
>>>>> the
>>>>> whole of the science, so they look for one little thing they can say
>>>>> is
>>>>> wrong, and thus generalize that the science is entirely compromised.
>>>>> Of
>>>>> course, as nicely shown in the SPM, every landmass is independently
>>>>> warming, and much as the models predict. So they can harp all they
>>>>> want
>>>>> on one Chinese data set, it couldn't possibly change the big picture
>>>>> (let
>>>>> alone even the trends for China). The So they are simply hoping to
>>>>> blow
>>>>> this up to something that looks like a legitimate controversy. The
>>>>> last
>>>>> thing you want to do is help them by feeding the fire. Best thing is
>>>>> to
>>>>> ignore them completely. They no longer have their friends in power
>>>>> here
>>>>> in the U.S., and the media has become entirely unsympathetic to the
>>>>> rants
>>>>> of the contrarians at least in the U.S.--the Wall Street Journal
>>>>> editorial page are about the only place they can broadcast their
>>>>> disinformation. So in other words, for contrarians the environment
>>>>> appears to have become very unfavorable for development. I would
>>>>> advise
>>>>> Wang the same way. Keenan may or may not be bluffing, but if he tries
>>>>> this I believe that British law would make it easy for Wang to win a
>>>>> defamation suit against him (the burden is much tougher in the
>>>>> states),
>>>>> mike Phil Jones wrote: Kevin, Have a look at
>>>>> this
>>>>> web site. I see you're away. The websites can wait, but scroll down
>>>>> to
>>>>> the letter below from Keenan - the last sentence.
>>>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1471#comments and
>>>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1479#more-1479 One is about data from
>>>>> a
>>>>> paper 17 years ago (Jones et al. 1990) Also there is this email
>>>>> (below)
>>>>> sent to Wei-Chyung Wang, who was one of the co-authors on the 1990
>>>>> paper. Wei-Chyung is in China, and may not yet have seen this. When
>>>>> he's
>>>>> back in Albany, I've suggested he talks to someone there. It is all
>>>>> malicious. I've cc'd this to Ben and Mike as well, to get any
>>>>> thoughts
>>>>> from their experiences. If it gets worse I will bring Susan in as
>>>>> well,
>>>>> but I'm talking to some people at UEA first. Susan has enough to do
>>>>> with getting the AR4 WG1 volume out. On the 1990 paper, I have put
>>>>> the
>>>>> locations and the data for the rural stations used in the paper on
>>>>> the
>>>>> CRU website. All the language is about me not being able to send them
>>>>> the station data used for the grids (as used in 1990!). I don't have
>>>>> this information, as we have much more data now (much more in
>>>>> Australia
>>>>> and China than then) and probably more stations in western USSR are
>>>>> as
>>>>> well. As for the other request, I don't have the information on the
>>>>> sources of all the sites used in the CRUTEM3 database. We are adding
>>>>> in
>>>>> new datasets regularly (all of NZ from Jim Renwick recently) , but we
>>>>> don't keep a source code for each station. Almost all sites have
>>>>> multiple sources and only a few sites have single sources. I know
>>>>> things
>>>>> roughly by country and could reconstruct it, but it would take a
>>>>> while.
>>>>> GHCN and NCAR don't have source codes either. It does all come from
>>>>> the
>>>>> NMSs - well mostly, but some from scientists. A lot of the issues
>>>>> are
>>>>> in various papers, but they never read these. Also certainly no use
>>>>> talking to them. In Geneva all week. David Parker and Tom Peterson
>>>>> will be there. I can live with the web site abuse, but the Keenan
>>>>> letter knocked me back a bit. I seem to be the marked man now !
>>>>> Cheers Phil From: "D.J. Keenan" To: "Wei-Chyung Wang" Cc:
>>>>> "Phil
>>>>> Jones" Subject: retraction request Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:31:15
>>>>> +0100
>>>>> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028 X-UEA-Spam-Score:
>>>>> 0.0
>>>>> X-UEA-Spam-Level: / X-UEA-Spam-Flag: NO Dear Dr. Wang, Regarding the
>>>>> Chinese meteorological data analyzed by Wang et al. [GRL, 1990] and
>>>>> Jones
>>>>> et al. [Nature, 1990], it now seems clear that there are severe
>>>>> problems.
>>>>> In particular, the data was obtained from 84 meteorological stations
>>>>> that can be classified as follows. 49 have no histories 08 have
>>>>> inconsistent histories 18 have substantial relocations 02 have
>>>>> single-year relocations 07 have no relocations Furthermore, some of
>>>>> the relocations are very distant--over 20 km. Others are to greatly
>>>>> different environments, as illustrated here:
>>>>> http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1323#comment-102970 The above
>>>>> contradicts
>>>>> the published claim to have considered the histories of the stations,
>>>>> especially for the 49 stations that have no histories. Yet the claim
>>>>> is
>>>>> crucial for the research conclusions. I e-mailed you about this on
>>>>> April
>>>>> 11th. I also phoned you on April 13th: you said that you were in a
>>>>> meeting and would get back to me. I have received no response. I ask
>>>>> you to retract your GRL paper, in full, and to retract the claims made
>>>>> in
>>>>> Nature about the Chinese data. If you do not do so, I intend to
>>>>> publicly
>>>>> submit an allegation of research misconduct to your university at
>>>>> Albany.
>>>>> Douglas J. Keenan http://www.informath.org phone xxx xxxx xxxx2
>>>>> The
>>>>> Limehouse Cut, London E14 6N, UK Prof. Phil Jones Climatic
>>>>> Research
>>>>> Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxxSchool of Environmental
>>>>> Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxxUniversity of East Anglia Norwich
>>>>> Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx NR4 7TJ UK
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -- Michael E. Mann Associate Professor Director,
>>>>> Earth
>>>>> System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology
>>>>> Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxxWalker Building FAX:
>>>>> (814)
>>>>> xxx xxxx xxxxThe Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>>> University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
>>>>> ___________________ Kevin Trenberth Climate Analysis Section, NCAR PO
>>>>> Box
>>>>> 3000 Boulder CO 80307 ph xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Michael E. Mann Associate Professor Director, Earth System
>>>>> Science
>>>>> Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814)
>>>>> xxx xxxx xxxxWalker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> The
>>>>> Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University
>>>>> Park,
>>>>> PA 16xxx xxxx xxxxhttp://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
>>>> ___________________
>>>> Kevin Trenberth
>>>> Climate Analysis Section, NCAR
>>>> PO Box 3000
>>>> Boulder CO 80307
>>>> ph xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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: 1196872660.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Even more on Loehle's 2000 year climate analysis]
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:37:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
well put Phil,
I think you've put your finger right on it. JGR-Atmospheres has been publishing some truly
awful papers lately; we responded (Gavin, me, James Annan) to the awful Schwartz
sensitivity estimate paper, but there are so many other bad papers that are appearing there
(Chylak, etc.) that its just impossible to respond to them all.
I hadn't seen this latest one though. McKitrick and Michaels team up again, wow! maybe
McKitrick has figured ou the difference between radians and degrees this time!
talk to you later,
mike
Phil Jones wrote:
Mike,
Also I see him writing things - then people saying you should
write this up for a paper, as though it can be knocked up in an
afternoon. He realises he can't do this - as it takes much longer.
Then we wastes more and more time opening up new threads.
He doesn't seem clever enough to realise this.
Gavin and Rasmus have seen the attached piece of garbage!
UAH is correct, therefore the land surface must be wrong.
Let's adjust it for a dodgy reason - ah, it now agrees with UAH.
Let's forget that the land now disagrees with the ocean surface.
If only I'd thought of that first, I could have not bothered with
the awful analysis. If only I'd just believed RSS in the first place.
Cheers
Phil
At 15:16 05/12/2007, you wrote:
HI Phil,
thanks--thats good.
Re, Loehle, McIntyre. Funny--w/ each awful paper E&E publishes, McIntyre realizes that
it compromises the integrity of his own "work" even further. He can't distance himself
from E&E much as he'd like to. He also seems to be losing lots of credibility now w/
all but his most loyal followers, which is good to see...
mike
Phil Jones wrote:
Mike,
Yes the 1990 graphic is in an Appendix. The last few are being regularly hassled
by Thorsten. The guy from EPRI (Larry) really wants something submitted soon.
So working here to get something in by end of Jan. Keith is going to get
it fast-tracked through the Holocene - well that's the plan.
The Loehle paper is awful as you know. So is another article on the IPCC process
in E&E. I did look at Climate Audit a week or two back - I got the impression
that McIntyre is trying to distance himself from some of these E&E articles by
saying we have to be equally skeptical about them as well.
Cheers
Phil
At 14:00 04/12/2007, you wrote:
Hey Phil,
thanks--nice coincidence in timing. So the 1990 graphic will be discussed in this review
paper, right? Perfect, I'll let Gavin know.
Will look into the AGU fellowship situation ASAP.
I don't read E&E, gives me indigestion--I don't even consider it peer-reviewed science,
and in my view we should treat it that way. i.e., don't cite, and if journalists ask us
about a paper, simply explain its not peer-reviewed science, and Sonja B-C, the editor,
has even admitted to an anti-Kyoto agenda!
I do hope that Wei-Chyung pursues legal action here.
So didn't see this recent paper, nor have I heard about the IJC paper, Christy and
Spencer continue to lose more and more scientific credibility with each awful paper they
publish.
Gavin is planning to do something on the Loehle paper on RealClimate, I'm staying away
from it. I have a revised set of hemispheric reconstructions which I'll send you soon,
its basically what I showed at AGU last year. Submitted to PNAS--more soon on that,
mike
Phil Jones wrote:
Mike,
Some text came last night from Caspar. Keith/Tim writing their parts still.
I have text from Francis, so almost all here now. Still need to find some time
- maybe the Christmas/New Year break here - to put it all together. There
is so much else going on here at the moment with other papers, it will
be hard to find some time. I wish they had all responded much sooner!
As for AGU - just getting one of their Fellowships would be fine.
I take it you've seen the attached in E&E. I've not heard any more from
Wei-Chyung in the past couple of months. I'm working on a paper
on urbanization. I can show China is hardly affected. Will send for you
to look over when I have it in a form that is sendable. Would appreciate
your thoughts on how I will have said things.
Have another awful pdf of a paper accepted in IJC !! It ws rejected
by all three reviewers for GRL! It is by Douglass, Christy , Singer et al
- thus you'll know what it is on.
Have booked flights for Tahiti in April, just need to do the hotel now.
Cheers
Phil
Cheers
Phil
At 02:07 04/12/2007, you wrote:
Hi Phil,
I hope things are going well these days, and that the recent round of attacks have died
down. seems like some time since I've heard from you.
Please see below: Gavin was wondering if there is any update in status on this?
By the way, still looking into nominating you for an AGU award, I've been told that the
Ewing medal wouldn't be the right one. Let me know if you have any particular options
you'd like me to investigate...
thanks,
mike
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Even more on Loehle's 2000 year climate analysis
Date: 03 Dec 2007 20:59:xxx xxxx xxxx
From: Gavin Schmidt [1]<gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Michael E. Mann [2]<mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
References: [3]<3.0.3.32.20071203130209.0123fd18@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[4]<3.0.3.32.20071202224717.012384a8@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[5]<3.0.3.32.20071201123550.01237954@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[6]<3.0.3.32.20071201123550.01237954@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[7]<3.0.3.32.20071202224717.012384a8@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[8]<3.0.3.32.20071203130209.0123fd18@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[9]<3.0.3.32.20071203141259.0126c33c@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
[10]<475457F3.9070102@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
this reminds me. What's the status of Phil Jones and Caspar's
investigation of the IPCC90 curve? Phil wanted us to hold off for some
reason, but is that done with?
That's a great story that needs to be told.
Gavin
On Mon, 2xxx xxxx xxxxat 14:24, Michael E. Mann wrote:
> thanks Eric,
>
> That's great. I've again copied in Gavin so that he has this info
too.
>
> Will keep you in the loop!
>
> mike
>
> Eric Swanson wrote:
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> > I do hope you all are able to put this all together.
> > There were several comments on CA about RealClimate,
suggesting
that
> > RC wouldn't say anything, as E&E publication has such a
bad
rap.
> >
> > Perhaps my biggest complaint was also one mentioned by another
> > poster
> > on CA. I don't like using a simple linear interpolation between
> > data points for these series where there are many years
between
> > samples.
> > Here's the other fellow's comments:
> >
> >
[11]
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162478
> >
[12]
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162654
> >
[13]
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162665
> >
> > I would go further than that. These data sets represent
samples
of
> > time records. The sampling does not produce a value for a
single
> > year.
> > Rather, each sample represents some number of years of the
variable
> > as averaged in the process of collecting the material to be
> > analyzed.
> >
> > Consider an ocean sediment core, such as Keigwin's data. The
> > subcores
> > are sampled every 1.0 cm. Assume the material is taken with a
device
> > that
> > collects mud from a 0.4 cm area along the core. Thus, the
sample
> > would
> > contain 4/10 of the material deposited at that 1 cm per sample
rate
> > of
> > change in time. If the age/depth model at that point yields a
100
> > year
> > per cm rate, then the sample would represent an average over
40
> > years.
> > Simple linear interpolation assumes a continuously varying
change
> > between
> > the points, while the sampling process would give a brief 40
year
> > value
> > with the other 60 years being unknown. What if the entire cm
of
the
> > core
> > were analyzed? One would not know unless one had contacted
each
> > research
> > group that did the analysis and requested more information
than
that
> > which
> > might be found in the published reports.
> >
> > NOTE: I looked at Keigwin's data when I wrote a comment on
Loehle's
> > 2004 paper
> >
> > Comments on "Climate change: detection and attribution of
trends
> > from long-term
> > geologic data" by C. Loehle [Ecological Modelling 171 (4)
(2004)
> > xxx xxxx xxxx],
> > Ecological Modelling 192 (20xxx xxxx xxxx
> >
> > You may add my name to the list for what it's worth.
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Eric Swanson
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > At 01:18 PM 12/3/xxx xxxx xxxx, you wrote:
> > >>>>
> > Eric--this is
great, thanks for all of the info. I've taken
> > the liberty of
forwarding to Gavin, as we're thinking of
> > doing an RC
post on this, and this would be very useful. We
> > should
certainly list you as a "co-author" on this, if thats
> > ok w/ you?
> >
> > Looking
forward
to hearing what else you find here!
> >
> > 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: [14]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
>
>
[15]
http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
>
--
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: [16]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
[17]
http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email [18]p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
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: [19]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
[20]
http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email [21]p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
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: [22]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
[23]
http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email [24]p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
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: [25]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
[26]http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
References
Visible links
1. mailto:gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071203130209.0123fd18@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071202224717.012384a8@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071201123550.01237954@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071201123550.01237954@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
7. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071202224717.012384a8@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
8. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071203130209.0123fd18@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
9. mailto:3.0.3.32.20071203141259.0126c33c@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
10. mailto:475457F3.9070102@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
11. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162478
12. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162654
13. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162665
14. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
15. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
16. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
17. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
18. mailto:p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
19. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
20. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
21. mailto:p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
22. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
23. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
24. mailto:p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
25. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
26. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Hidden links:
27. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Original Filename: 1199458641.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Thanks for the photos of Nick !
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:57:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear Phil,
I was very sorry to hear of Hannah's health problems. I hope she makes a
speedy recovery. Please give her my best wishes, and tell her that there
is life and love after divorce!
My Mom's cataract surgery did not go very well, and it looks like she
won't be able to drive any longer. Nick and I are best placed to take
care of her, so I'm trying to persuade her to move to California. So
there could be some big changes in our lives in 2008.
Nick has turned into a fine young man. It's going to be tough to see him
leave for college in three and a half years.
I share your frustration about having to devote valuable time to the
rebuttal of crappy papers. Douglass et al. is truly awful. It should
never have been published. Any residual respect I might have had for
John Christy has now vanished. I can't believe that he's a coauthor on
this garbage.
Best wishes to all of you from rainy Livermore,
Ben
Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Ben,
> Thanks for the card and photos of Nick and your caving exploits
> with Tom and Karl !
> Had a quiet Christmas and New Year. We did get to see Poppy
> at Hannah's house in Deal in Kent. Matthew and Miranda came as well
> along with Ruth's mum - so she saw her great granddaughter.
> We were there as Hannah had to have another cyst removed from around
> her ovary - all is well and she's recovering. Ruth has been with her since
> mid-December. Hannah had an earlier cyst when she was 12, but this time
> they managed to save the ovary. She still needs to see a gynaecologist to
> see if the ovary is still working OK.
> 2007 hasn't been a great year for Hannah, as she has started divorce
> proceedings from her husband (Gordon). They only married in 2005. He
> seemed fine initially, but has had at least 2 affairs.
>
> Keep up the good work on the Douglass et al comment. I'm trying to
> finish
> a few things in the next couple of months. I will comment on drafts if
> you want.
> Susan Solomon is trying to encourage me to respond to this piece of
> rubbish. I'll try and encourage Rasmus Benestad of DNMI to respond. He did
> so last time to a very similar paper in Climate Research. MM don't
> refer to
> that and MM don't use RSS data! Their analysis is flawed anyway, but it
> would
> all go away if they had used RSS instead of UAH!
>
> What gets me is who are the reviewers of these two awful papers. I know
> editors have a hard time finding reviewers, but they must have known that
> both papers were likely awful. It seems that editors (even of these
> two used-to-be OK
> journals) just want more papers.
>
> Sad day - coming in to hear of Bert Bolin's death.
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>
>
>
>
> Prof. Phil Jones
> Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
> School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
> University of East Anglia
> Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> NR4 7TJ
> UK
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: 1199984805.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: John Christy's latest ideas]
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:06:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear Phil,
If you get a chance, could you call me up at work xxx xxxx xxxx) to
talk about the "IJC publication" option? I'd really like to discuss that
with you.
With best regards,
Ben
Phil Jones wrote:
>
> Ben,
> Almost said something about this in the main email about the diagrams!
> Other emails and a couple of phone calls distracting me - have to make
> sure
> I'm sending the right email to the right list/person!
> He's clearly biased, but he gets an audience unfortunately. There are
> enough people out there who think we're wrong to cause me to worry at
> times.
> I'd like the world to warm up quicker, but if it did, I know that
> the sensitivity
> is much higher and humanity would be in a real mess!
>
> I'm getting people misinterpreting my comment that went along with
> Chris Folland's press release about the 2008 forecast. It says we're
> warming at 0.2 degC/decade and that is exactly what we should be.
> The individual years don't matter.
>
> CA are now to send out FOIA requests for the Review Editor comments
> on the AR4 Chapters. For some reason they think they exist!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>
>
> At 16:52 09/01/2008, you wrote:
>> Dear Phil,
>>
>> I can't believe John is now arguing that he's the only guy who can
>> provide unbiased assessments of model performance. After all the
>> mistakes he's made with MSU, and after the Douglass et al. fiasco, he
>> should have acquired a little humility. But I guess "humility" isn't
>> in his dictionary...
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Ben
>> Phil Jones wrote:
>>> Ben,
>>> I'll give up on trying to catch him on the road to Damascus -
>>> he's beyond redemption.
>>> Glad to see that someone's rejected something he's written.
>>> Jim Hack's good, so I'm confident he won't be fooled.
>>> Cheers
>>> Phil
>>>
>>> At 17:28 07/01/2008, you wrote:
>>>> Dear Phil,
>>>>
>>>> More Christy stuff... The guy is just incredible...
>>>>
>>>> With best regards,
>>>>
>>>> Ben
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> 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-Account-Key: account1
>>>> Return-Path: <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> Received: from mail-2.llnl.gov ([unix socket])
>>>> by mail-2.llnl.gov (Cyrus v2.2.12) with LMTPA;
>>>> Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> Received: from nspiron-2.llnl.gov (nspiron-2.llnl.gov [128.115.41.82])
>>>> by mail-2.llnl.gov (8.13.1/8.12.3/LLNL evision: 1.6 $) with
>>>> ESMTP id m07H0edp031523;
>>>> Mon, 7 Jan 2008 09:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> X-Attachments: None
>>>> X-IronPort-AV: E=McAfee;i="5100,188,5200"; a="5944377"
>>>> X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.24,254,1196668800";
>>>> d="scan'208";a="5944377"
>>>> Received: from dione.llnl.gov (HELO [128.115.57.29]) ([128.115.57.29])
>>>> by nspiron-2.llnl.gov with ESMTP; 07 Jan 2008 09:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> Message-ID: <47825AB8.5000608@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> Reply-To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>> Organization: LLNL
>>>> User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.12 (X11/20070529)
>>>> MIME-Version: 1.0
>>>> To: "Hack, James J." <jhack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> Subject: Re: John Christy's latest ideas
>>>> References:
>>>> <537C6C0940C6C143AA46A88946B854170B9FAF74@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> In-Reply-To:
>>>> <537C6C0940C6C143AA46A88946B854170B9FAF74@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>>>
>>>> Dear Jim,
>>>>
>>>> I'm well aware of this paper, and am currently preparing a reply
>>>> (together with many others who were involved in the first CCSP
>>>> report). To put it bluntly, the Douglass paper is a piece of
>>>> worthless garbage. It has serious statistical flaws. Christy should
>>>> be ashamed that he's a co-author on this. His letter to Dr. Strayer
>>>> is deplorable and offensive. For over a decade, Christy has
>>>> portrayed himself as the only guy who is smart enough to develop
>>>> climate-quality data records from MSU. Recently, he's also portrayed
>>>> himself as the only guy who's smart enough to develop
>>>> climate-quality data records from radiosonde data. And now he's the
>>>> only scientist who is capable of performing "hard-nosed",
>>>> independent assessments of climate model performance.
>>>>
>>>> John Christy has made a scientific career out of being wrong. He's
>>>> not even a third-rate scientist. I'd be happy to discuss Christy's
>>>> "unique ways of validating climate models" with you.
>>>>
>>>> With best regards,
>>>>
>>>> Ben
>>>> Hack, James J. wrote:
>>>>> Dear Ben,
>>>>>
>>>>> Happy New Year. Hope all is well. I was wondering if you're
>>>>> familiar with the attached paper? I thought that you had recently
>>>>> published something that concludes something quite different. Is
>>>>> that right? If yes, could you forward me a copy? And, any
>>>>> comments are also welcome.
>>>>> He's coming to ORNL next week to under the premise that he has some
>>>>> unique ways to validate climate models (this time with regard to
>>>>> the lower thermodynamic structure). I'd be happy to chat with you
>>>>> about this as well if you would like. I'm appending what I know to
>>>>> the bottom of this note.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards ...
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>>>
>>>>> James J. Hack Director, National Center for Computational Sciences
>>>>> Oak Ridge National Laboratory
>>>>> One Bethel Valley Road
>>>>> P.O. Box 2008, MS-6008
>>>>> Oak Ridge, TN 37xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>>
>>>>> email: jhack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx <mailto:jhack@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>> voice: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>> cell: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> >> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> >> From: John Christy [_mailto:john.christy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx_]
>>>>>> >> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:16 AM
>>>>>> >> To: Strayer, Michael
>>>>>> >> Cc: Salmon, Jeffrey
>>>>>> >> Subject: Climate Model Evaluation
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Dr. Strayer:
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Jeff Salmon is aware of a project we at UAHuntsville believe is
>>>>>> >> vital and that you may provide a way to see it accomplished.
>>>>>> As you
>>>>>> >> know, our nation's energy and climate change policies are being
>>>>>> >> driven by output from global climate models. However, there has
>>>>>> >> never been a true "red team" assessment of these model
>>>>>> projections
>>>>>> >> in the way other government programs are subjected to hard-nosed,
>>>>>> >> independent evaluations. To date, most of the "evaluation" of
>>>>>> these
>>>>>> >> models has been left in the hands of the climate modelers
>>>>>> >> themselves. This has the potential of biasing the entire process.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> It is often a climate modeler's claim (and promoted in IPCC
>>>>>> >> documents - see attached) that the models must be correct because
>>>>>> >> the global surface
>>>>>> >> temperature variations since 1850 are reproduced (somewhat) by
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> >> models when run in hindcast mode. However, this is not a
>>>>>> scientific
>>>>>> >> experiment for the simple reason that every climate modeler
>>>>>> saw the
>>>>>> >> answer ahead of time. It is terribly easy to get the right answer
>>>>>> >> for the wrong reason, especially if you already know the answer.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> A legitimate experiment is to test the models' output against
>>>>>> >> variables to which modelers did not have access ... a true blind
>>>>>> >> test of the models.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> I have proposed and have had rejected a model evaluation
>>>>>> project to
>>>>>> >> DOE based on the utilization of global datasets we build here at
>>>>>> >> UAH. We have published many of these datasets (most are
>>>>>> >> satellite-based) which document the complexity of the climate
>>>>>> >> system and which we think models should replicate in some way,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> >> to aid in model development where shortcomings are found.
>>>>>> These are
>>>>>> >> datasets of quantities that modelers in general were not aware of
>>>>>> >> when doing model testing. We have performed
>>>>>> >> a few of these tests and have found models reveal serious
>>>>>> >> shortcomings in some of the most fundamental aspects of energy
>>>>>> >> distribution. We believe a rigorous test of climate models is in
>>>>>> >> order as the congress starts considering energy reduction
>>>>>> >> strategies which can have significant consequences on our
>>>>>> economy.
>>>>>> >> Below is an abstract of a retooled proposal I am working on.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> If you see a possible avenue for research along these lines,
>>>>>> please
>>>>>> >> let me know. Too, we have been considering some type of
>>>>>> partnership
>>>>>> >> with Oakridge since the facility is nearby, and this may be a way
>>>>>> >> to do that.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> John C.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Understanding the vertical energy distribution of the Earth's
>>>>> atmosphere
>>>>>> >> and its expression in global climate model simulations
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> John R. Christy, P.I., University of Alabama in Huntsville
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Abstract
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Sets of independent observations indicate, unexpectedly, that the
>>>>>> >> warming of the tropical atmosphere since 1978 is proceeding at a
>>>>>> >> rate much less than that anticipated from climate model
>>>>>> simulations.
>>>>>> >> Specifically, while the surface has warmed, the lower troposphere
>>>>>> >> has experienced less warming. In contrast, all climate models we
>>>>>> >> and others have examined indicate the lower tropical atmosphere
>>>>>> >> should be warming at a rate 1.2 to 1.5 times greater than the
>>>>>> >> surface when forced with increasing greenhouse gases within the
>>>>>> >> context of other observed forcings (the so-called "negative lapse
>>>>>> >> rate feedback".) We propose to diagnose this curious phenomenon
>>>>>> >> with several satellite-based datasets to document its relation to
>>>>>> >> other climate variables. We shall do the same for climate model
>>>>>> >> output of the same simulated variables. This will
>>>>>> >> enable us to propose an integrated conceptual framework of the
>>>>>> >> phenomenon for further testing. Tied in with this research are
>>>>> potential
>>>>>> >> answers to fundamental questions such as the following: (1) In
>>>>>> >> response to increasing surface temperatures, is the lower
>>>>>> >> atmosphere reconfiguring the way heat energy is transported which
>>>>>> >> allows for an increasing amount of heat to more freely escape to
>>>>>> >> space? (2) Could there be a natural thermostatic effect in the
>>>>>> >> climate system which acts in a different way than parameterized
>>>>>> >> convective-adjustment schemes dependent upon current
>>>>>> assumptions of
>>>>>> >> heat deposition and retention? (3)
>>>>>> >> If observed atmospheric heat retention is considerably less than
>>>>>> >> model projections, what impact will lower retention rates have on
>>>>>> >> anticipated increases in surface temperatures in the 21st
>>>>>> century?
>>>>>> >>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>> Prof. Phil Jones
>>> Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> University of East Anglia
>>> Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>> NR4 7TJ
>>> UK
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 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
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> Prof. Phil Jones
> Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
> School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
> University of East Anglia
> Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> NR4 7TJ
> UK
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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: 1211462932.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: Thompson et al paper
Date: Thu May 22 09:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Mike, Gavin,
OK - as long as you're not critical and remember the embargo. I'll expect Nature
will be sending the paper around later today to the press embargoed till the middle
of next week.
Attached is the pdf. This is the final one bar page and volume numbers. Also
attached is our latest draft press release. This is likely OK except for the last
paragraph
which we're still working on. There will also be a News and Views item from
Dick Reynolds and a Nature news piece from Quirin Schiermeier. I don't have either
of these. I did speak to Quirin on Tuesday and he's also spoke to Dave and John.
It took me a while to explain the significance of the paper. I hope to get these later
two items before I might have to do any interviews early next week. We have
a bank holiday on Monday in the UK. The press release will go out jointly from
the Met Office and UEA - not sure exactly when.
Potentially the key issue is the final Nature sentence which alludes to the probable
underestimation of SSTs in the last few years. Drifters now measuring SSTs dominate
by over 2 to 1 cf ships. Drifters likely measure SSTs about 0.1 to 0.2 deg C cooler
than ships, so we could be underestimating SSTs and hence global T. I hope Dick
will discuss this more. It also means that the 1xxx xxxx xxxxaverage SST that people use
to force/couple with models is slightly too warm. Ship-based SSTs are in decline - lots
of issues related to the shipping companies wanting the locations of the ships
kept secret, also some minor issues of piracy as well. You might want to talk to Scott
Woodruff
more about this.
A bit of background. Loads more UK WW2 logs have been digitized and these will
be going or have gone into ICOADS. These logs cover the WW2 years as well
as the late 1940s up to about 1950. It seems that all of these require bucket corrections.
My guess will be that the period from 1xxx xxxx xxxxwill get raised by up to 0.3 deg C for the
SSTs, so about 0.2 for the combined. In digitizing they have concentrated on the
South Atlantic/Indian Ocean log books.
[1]http://brohan.org/hadobs/digitised_obs/docs/ and click on SST to see some
comparisons.
The periods mentioned here don't seem quite right as more later 1940s logs have also been
digitized. There are more log books to digitize for WW2 - they have done about half of
those
not already done.
If anyone wonders where all the RN ships came from, many of those in the S.
Atlantic/indian
oceans were originally US ships. The UK got these through the Churchill/Roosevelt deal in
1939/40.
Occasionally some ships needed repairs and the UK didn't have the major parts, so
this will explain the voyages of a few south of OZ and NZ across the Pacific to Seattle
and then back into the fray.
ICOADS are looking into a project to adjust/correct all their log books.
Also attaching a ppt from Scott Woodruff. Scott knows who signed this!
If you want me to look through anything then email me.
I have another paper just accepted in JGR coming out on Chinese temps
and urbanization. This will also likely cause a stir. I'll send you a copy when
I get the proofs from AGU. Some of the paper relates to the 1990 paper
and the fraud allegation against Wei-Chyung Wang. Remind me on this in
a few weeks if you hear nothing.
Cheers
Phil
PS CRU/Tyndall won a silver medal for our garden at the Chelsea Flower Show -
the theme of the show this year was the changing climate and how it affects gardening.
Clare Goodess was at the garden on Tuesday. She said she never stopped
for her 4 hour stint of talking to the public - only one skeptic. She met the environment
minister.
She was talking about the high and low emissions garden. The minister (Phil Woolas)
seemed to think that the emissions related to the ability of the plants to extract
CO2 from the atmosphere! He'd also not heard of the UHI! Still lots of education
needed.
PPS Our web server has found this piece of garbage - so wrong it is unbelievable that
Tim Ball wrote a decent paper in Climate Since AD 1500. I sometimes wish I'd never
said this about the land stations in an email. Referring to Alex von Storch just
shows how up to date he is.
[2]http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3151
At 20:12 21/05/2008, Michael Mann wrote:
Hi Phil,
Gavin and I have been discussing, we think it will be important for us to do something
on the Thompson et al paper as soon as it appears, since its likely that naysayers are
going to do their best to put a contrarian slant on this in the blogosphere.
Would you mind giving us an advance copy. We promise to fully respect Nature's embargo
(i.e., we wouldn't post any article until the paper goes public) and we don't expect to
in any way be critical of the paper. We simply want to do our best to help make sure
that the right message is emphasized.
thanks in advance for any help!
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: [3]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
[4]http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. http://brohan.org/hadobs/digitised_obs/docs/
2. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3151
3. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Original Filename: 1248993704.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Thomas R. Karl" <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]]
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:41:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Virginia Burkett <virginia_burkett@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Wehner <mfwehner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter gleckler <gleckler1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Thorne, Peter" <peter.thorne@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Susan Solomon <ssolomon@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "'Philip D. Jones'" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, carl mears <mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steven Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Dear Tom,
Thanks for forwarding the message from John Christy. Excuse me for being
so blunt, but John's message is just a load of utter garbage.
I got a laugh out of John's claim that Santer et al. (2008) was "poorly
done". This was kind of ironic coming from a co-author of the Douglass
et al. (2007) paper, which used a fundamentally flawed statistical test
to compare modeled and observed tropospheric temperature trends. To my
knowledge, John has NEVER acknowledged that Douglass et al. used a
flawed statistical test to reach incorrect conclusions - despite
unequivocal evidence from the "synthetic data" experiments in Santer et
al. (2008) that the Douglass et al. "robust consistency" test was simply
wrong. Unbelievably, Christy continues to assert that the results of
Douglass et al. (2007) "still stand". I can only shake my head in
amazement at such intellectual dishonesty. I guess the best form of
defense is a "robust" attack.
So how does John support his contention that Santer et al. (2008) was
"poorly done"? He begins by stating that:
"Santer et al. 2008 used ERSST data which I understand has now been
changed in a way that discredits the conclusion there".
Maybe you or Tom Peterson or Dick Reynolds can enlighten me on this one.
How exactly have NOAA ERSST surface data changed? Recall that Santer et
al. (2008) actually used two different versions of the ERSST data
(version 2 and version 3). We also used HadISST sea-surface temperature
data, and combined SSTs and land 2m temperature data from HadCRUT3v. In
other words, we used four different observational estimates of surface
temperature changes. Our bottom-line conclusion (no significant
discrepancy between modeled and observed lower-tropospheric lapse-rate
trends) was not sensitive to our choice of observed surface temperature
dataset.
John next assets that:
"Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 (of the radiosonde data) are clearly spurious due
to the error in ECMWF as published many places".
I'll let Leo Haimberger respond to that one. And if v1.2 of Leo's data
is "clearly spurious", why did John Christy agree to be a co-author on
the Douglass et al. paper which uses upper-air data from v1.2?
Santer et al. (2008) comprehensively examined structural uncertainties
in the observed upper-air datasets. They looked at two different
satellite and seven different radiosonde-based estimates of tropospheric
temperature change. As in the case of the surface temperature data,
getting the statistical test right was much more important (in terms of
the bottom-line conclusions) than the choice of observational upper-air
dataset.
Christy's next criticism of our IJoC paper is even more absurd. He
states that:
"Santer et al. 2008 asked a very different question...than we did. Our
question was "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best Data
(including RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC
model agree with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference.
Actually, we asked and answered BOTH of these questions. "Tests with
individual model realizations" are described in Section 4.1 of Santer et
al. (2008), while Section 4.2 covers "Tests with multi-model
ensemble-mean trend". As should be obvious - even to John Christy - we
did NOT just compare observations with results from individual models.
For both types of test ("individual model" and "multi-model average"),
we found that, if one applied appropriate statistical tests (which
Douglass et al. failed to do), there was no longer a serious discrepancy
between modeled and observed trends in tropical lapse rates or in
tropical tropospheric temperatures.
Again, I find myself shaking my head in amazement. How can John make
such patently false claims about our paper? The kindest interpretation
is that he is a complete idiot, and has not even bothered to read Santer
et al. (2008) before making erroneous criticisms of it. The less kind
interpretation is that he is deliberately lying.
A good scientist is willing to acknowledge the errors he or she commits
(such as applying an inappropriate statistical test). John Christy is
not a good scientist. I'm not a religious man, but I'm sure willing to
thank some higher authority that Dr. John Christy is not the
"gatekeeper" of what constitutes sound science.
I hope you don't mind, Tom, but I'm copying this email to some of the
other co-authors of the Santer et al. (2008) IJoC paper. They deserve to
know about the kind of disinformation Christy is spreading.
With best regards,
Ben
Thomas R. Karl wrote:
> FYI
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:54:xxx xxxx xxxx
> From: John Christy <john.christy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
> To: Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
> CC: Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
> References: <4A534CF9.9080700@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>
>
>
> Tom:
>
> I've been on a heavy travel schedule and just now getting to emails I've
> delayed. I was in Asheville briefly Thursday for a taping for the CDMP
> project at the Biltmore estates (don't know why that was the backdrop)
> while traveling between meetings in Chapel Hill, Atlanta and here.
>
> We disagree on the use of available climate information regarding the
> many things related to climate/climate change as I see by your responses
> below - that is not unexpected as climate is an ugly, ambiguous, and
> complex system studied by a bunch of prima donnas (me included) and
> which defies authoritative declarations. I base my views on hard-core,
> published literature (some of it mine, but most of it not), so saying
> otherwise is not helpful or true. The simple fact is that the opinions
> expressed in the CCSP report do not represent the real range of
> scientific literature (the IPCC fell into the same trap - so running to
> the IPCC's corner doesn't move things forward).
>
> I think I can boil my objections to the CCSP Impacts report to this one
> idea for the SE (and US): The changes in weather variables (measured in
> a systematic settings) of the past 30 years are within the range of
> natural variability. That's the statement that should have been front
> and center of this whole document because it is
> mathematically/scientifically defensible. And, it carries more weight
> with planners so you can say to them, "If it happened before, it will
> happen again - so get ready now." By the way, my State Climatologist
> response to the CCSP was well-received by legislators and stakeholders
> (including many in the federal government) and still gets hits at
> http://*vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/aosc/.
>
> There also was a page or so on the tropical troposphere-surface issue
> that I didn't talk about on my response. It was wrong because it did
> not include all the latest research (i.e. since 2006) on the continuing
> and significant difference between the two trends. Someone was acting
> as a fierce gatekeeper on that one - citing only things that agreed with
> the opinion shown even if poorly done (e.g. Santer et al. 2008 used
> ERSST data which I understand has now been changed in a way that
> discredits the conclusion there, and Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 are clearly
> spurious due to the error in ECMWF as published many places, but
> analyzed in detail in Sakamoto and Christy 2009). The results of
> Douglass et al. 2007 (not cited by CCSP) still stand since Santer et al.
> 2008 asked a very different question (and used bad data to boot) than we
> did. Our question was "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best
> Data (including RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC
> model agree with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference.
> The fact my 2007 tropical paper (the follow-on papers in 2009 were
> probably too late, but they substantiate the 2007 paper) was not cited
> indicates how biased this section was. Christy et al. 2007 assessed the
> accuracy of the datasets (Santer et al. did not - they assumed all
> datasets were equal without looking at the published problems) and we
> came up with a result that defied the "consensus" of the CCSP report -
> so, it was doomed to not be mentioned since it would disrupt the
> storyline. (And, as soon as RSS fixes their spurious jump in 1992, our
> MSU datasets will be almost indistinguishable.)
>
> This gets to the issue that the "consensus" reports now are just the
> consensus of those who agree with the consensus. The
> government-selected authors have become gatekeepers rather than honest
> brokers of information. That is a real tragedy, because when someone
> becomes a gatekeeper, they don't know they've become a gatekeeper - and
> begin to (sincerely) think the non-consensus scientists are just nuts
> (... it's more comfortable that way rather than giving them credit for
> being skeptical in the face of a paradigm).
>
> Take care.
>
> John C.
>
> p.s. a few quick notes are interspersed below.
>
>
> Thomas C Peterson wrote:
>> Hi, John,
>> I didn't want this to catch you by surprise.
>> Tom
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: concerns about the Southeast chapter
>> Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
>> From: Thomas C Peterson <thomas.c.peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>> To: jim.obrien@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>> CC: Tom Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Jim,
>>
>>
>> First off and most importantly, congratulations on your recent
>> marriage. Anthony said it was the most touching wedding he has ever
>> been to. I wish you and your bride all the best.
>>
>> Thank you for your comments and for passing on John Christy's detailed
>> concerns about the Southeast chapter of our report, /Global Climate
>> Change Impacts in the United States/. Please let me respond to the key
>> points he raised.
>>
>> In Dr. John Christy's June 23, 2009 document "Alabama climatologist
>> responds to U.S. government report on regional impacts of global
>> climate change", he primarily focused on 4 prime concerns:
>>
>> 1. Assessing changes since 1970.
>>
>> 2. Statements on hurricanes.
>>
>> 3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section).
>>
>> 4. Using models to assess the future.
>>
>>
>>
>> /1. Assessing changes since 1970./
>>
>> The Southeast section has 5 figures and one table. One figure is on
>> changes in precipitation patterns from 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is
>> on patterns of days per year over 90F with two maps, one 1xxx xxxx xxxx,
>> the other 2xxx xxxx xxxx. One figure is on the change in freezing days per
>> year, 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is on changes to a barrier island
>> land from 2002 to 2005. And the last figure was on Sea Surface
>> Temperature from 1900 to the present. The table indicates trends in
>> temperature and precipitation over two periods, 1xxx xxxx xxxxand
>> 1xxx xxxx xxxx. As Dr. Christy indicates in his paper, the full period and
>> the period since 1970 are behaving differently. To help explain this,
>> the table shows them both. Of the 5 figures, only one shows the
>> changes over this shorter period.
>>
>> Since, as the IPCC has indicated, the human impact on climate isn't
>> distinguishable from natural variability until about 1950, describing
>> the changes experienced in the majority of the time since 1950 would
>> be a more logical link to future anthropogenic climate change. In
>> most of the report, maps have shown the changes over the last 50
>> years. Because of the distinct behavior of time series of
>> precipitation and temperature in the Southeast, discussing the period
>> since 1970 seemed more appropriate. Though as the figures and table
>> indicate, this shorter period is not the sole or even major focus.
>
> See crux of the matter in email above - looking at the whole time series
> is demanded by science. Any 30 or 50-year period will give changes -
> blaming the most recent on humans ignores the similar (or even more
> rapid) changes that occurred before industrialization (e.g. western
> drought in 12th century). The period since 1970 WAS the major focus in
> the SE section (mentioned 6 times in two pages). And, OF COURSE any
> 30-year sub-period will have different characteristics than the 100-year
> population from which it is extracted ... that doesn't prove anything.
>>
>>
>>
>> /2. Statements on hurricanes./
>>
>> Dr. Christy takes issue with the report's statements about hurricanes
>> and quotes a line from the report and quotes an individual hurricane
>> expert who says that he disagrees with the conclusions. The line in
>> the report that Dr. Christy quotes comes almost word for word out of
>> CCSP SAP 3.3. While individual scientists may disagree with the
>> report's conclusions, this conclusion came directly out of the
>> peer-reviewed literature and assessments. Dr. Christy also complains
>> that "the report did not include a plot of the actual hurricane
>> landfalls". However, the section in the Southeast chapter discussing
>> landfalling hurricanes states "see /National Climate Change/ section
>> for a discussion of past trends and future projections" and sure
>> enough on page 35 there is a figure showing land falling hurricanes
>> along with a more in depth discussion of hurricanes.
>>
> You didn't read my State Climatologist response carefully - I mentioned
> page 35 and noted again it talked about the most recent decades (and
> even then, the graph still didn't go back to 1850). This hurricane
> storyline was hit hard by many scientists - hence is further evidence
> the report was generated by a gatekeeper mentality.
>>
>>
>> /3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section)./
>>
>> Moving out of the Southeast, Dr. Christy complains about one figure in
>> the Energy Chapter. Citing a climate skeptic's blog which cites an
>> individual described as the keeper of the data for the Energy
>> Information Administration (EIA), John writes that the rise in weather
>> related outages is largely a function of better reporting. Yet the
>> insert of weather versus non-weather-related outages shows a much
>> greater increase in weather-related outages than non-weather-related
>> outages. If all the increases were solely due to better reporting,
>> the differences between weather- and non-weather-related outages would
>> indicate a dramatic decrease over this time period in non-weather
>> related problems such as transmission equipment failures, earthquakes,
>> faults in line, faults at substations, relaying malfunctions, and
>> vandalism.
>>
>> Thanks to the efforts of EIA, after they took over the responsibility
>> of running the Department of Energy (DOE) data-collection process
>> around 1997, data collection became more effective. Efforts were made
>> in subsequent years to increase the response rate and upgrade the
>> reporting form. It was not until EIA's improvement of the data
>> collection that the important decoupling of weather- and
>> non-weather-related events (and a corresponding increase in the
>> proportion of all events due to weather extremes) became visible.
>>
>> To adjust for potential response-rate biases, we have separated
>> weather- and non-weather-related trends into indices and found an
>> upward trend only in the weather-related time series.
>>
>> As confirmed by EIA, *if there were a systematic bias one would expect
>> it to be reflected in both data series (especially since any given
>> reporting site would report both types of events).*
>>
>> As an additional precaution, we focused on trends in the number of
>> events (rather than customers affected) to avoid fortuitous
>> differences caused by the population density where events occur. This,
>> however, has the effect of understating the weather impacts because of
>> EIA definitions (see survey methodology notes below).
>>
>> More details are available at:
>> http://*eetd.lbl.gov/emills/pubs/grid-disruptions.html
>
> The data were not systematically taken and should not have been shown
> .. basic rule of climate.
>>
>>
>>
>> /4. Using models to assess the future./
>>
>> Can anyone say anything about the future of the Southeast's climate?
>> Evidently according to John Christy, the answer is no. The basic
>> physics of the greenhouse effect and why increasing greenhouse gases
>> are warming and should be expected to continue to warm the planet are
>> well known and explained in the /Global Climate Change/ section of the
>> report. Climate models are used around the world to both diagnose the
>> observed changes in climate and to provide projections for the
>> future. There is a huge body of peer-reviewed literature, including a
>> large number of peer-reviewed climate change assessments, supporting
>> this use. But in Dr. Christy's "view," models should not be used for
>> projections of the future, especially for the Southeast. The report
>> based, and indeed must base, its results on the huge body of
>> peer-reviewed scientific literature rather than the view of one
>> individual scientist.
>
> No one has proven models are capable of long-range forecasting.
> Modelers write and review their own literature - there are millions of
> dollars going into these enterprises, so what would you expect?
> Publication volume shouldn't impress anyone. The simple fact is we
> demonstrated in a straightforward and reproducible way that the actual
> trends over the past 30, 20, and 10 years are outside of the envelop of
> model predictions ... no one has disputed that finding with an
> alternative analysis - even when presented before congressional hearings
> where the opportunity for disagreement was openly available.
>>
>> I hope this helps relieve some of your concerns.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Tom Peterson
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ************************************************************
> John R. Christy
> Director, Earth System Science Center voice: xxx xxxx xxxx
> Professor, Atmospheric Science fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
> Alabama State Climatologist
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> http://*www.*nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html
>
> Mail: ESSC-Cramer Hall/University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville AL 35899
> Express: Cramer Hall/ESSC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville AL 35805
>
>
>
> --
>
> *Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D.*
>
> Director, NOAA
Original Filename: 1249652050.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Thomas R. Karl" <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]]
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:34:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Virginia Burkett <virginia_burkett@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Wehner <mfwehner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter gleckler <gleckler1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Thorne, Peter" <peter.thorne@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Susan Solomon <ssolomon@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "'Philip D. Jones'" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, carl mears <mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steven Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Dear Tom,
I'm inclined to agree with Mike. Some people are accessible to rational
scientific debate. They are good Bayesians - when confronted with new
scientific information, they are capable of modifying previously-held
views. John Christy is not accessible to rational scientific debate. New
evidence does not cause him to change his views. He simply claims that
the new evidence is wrong. From John's perspective, any datasets in
disagreement with UAH-based estimates of tropospheric temperature change
constitute "bad data".
John is incapable of recognizing and admitting that Douglass et al. used
a flawed statistical test to reach incorrect conclusions. He continues
to misrepresent the analyses we performed in our response to Douglass et
al. I don't see what useful purpose can be served by trying to engage
him in reasonable scientific debate.
At the Hawaii IPCC meeting in March, John stood up in front of an
audience of IPCC Working Group I Lead Authors and attempted to portray
himself as a victim of scientific discrimination. He claimed that his
"alternative" views on the nature and causes of climate change were
being ignored by the mainstream scientific community. This claim is
bogus. The "mainstream" scientific community has not ignored the
"alternative" views of folks like John Christy. The sad reality is that
we've wasted an inordinate amount of time responding to the flawed
science and incorrect claims of John and his colleagues.
I'm hopeful that I won't have to waste much more time on the "great
satellite debate". In my personal opinion, we're already well past the
point of diminishing returns on this debate. The point of diminishing
returns was reached three years ago, when you overcame great obstacles
to lead a fractious bunch of scientists to the successful completion of
the first CCSP Report.
With best regards,
Ben
Thomas R. Karl wrote:
> Ben,
>
> Just got to this. I wonder if it would be useful to directly respond to
> John, or would this be a time sink? Maybe a cleaned up version of this
> is a single reponse? Just thinking out loud.
>
> Thanks Ben
>
> P.S. I have no idea what he is talking about regarding ERST.
>
>
> Ben Santer said the following on 7/30/2009 9:41 PM:
>> Dear Tom,
>>
>> Thanks for forwarding the message from John Christy. Excuse me for
>> being so blunt, but John's message is just a load of utter garbage.
>>
>> I got a laugh out of John's claim that Santer et al. (2008) was
>> "poorly done". This was kind of ironic coming from a co-author of the
>> Douglass et al. (2007) paper, which used a fundamentally flawed
>> statistical test to compare modeled and observed tropospheric
>> temperature trends. To my knowledge, John has NEVER acknowledged that
>> Douglass et al. used a flawed statistical test to reach incorrect
>> conclusions - despite unequivocal evidence from the "synthetic data"
>> experiments in Santer et al. (2008) that the Douglass et al. "robust
>> consistency" test was simply wrong. Unbelievably, Christy continues to
>> assert that the results of Douglass et al. (2007) "still stand". I can
>> only shake my head in amazement at such intellectual dishonesty. I
>> guess the best form of defense is a "robust" attack.
>>
>> So how does John support his contention that Santer et al. (2008) was
>> "poorly done"? He begins by stating that:
>>
>> "Santer et al. 2008 used ERSST data which I understand has now been
>> changed in a way that discredits the conclusion there".
>>
>> Maybe you or Tom Peterson or Dick Reynolds can enlighten me on this
>> one. How exactly have NOAA ERSST surface data changed? Recall that
>> Santer et al. (2008) actually used two different versions of the ERSST
>> data (version 2 and version 3). We also used HadISST sea-surface
>> temperature data, and combined SSTs and land 2m temperature data from
>> HadCRUT3v. In other words, we used four different observational
>> estimates of surface temperature changes. Our bottom-line conclusion
>> (no significant discrepancy between modeled and observed
>> lower-tropospheric lapse-rate trends) was not sensitive to our choice
>> of observed surface temperature dataset.
>>
>> John next assets that:
>>
>> "Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 (of the radiosonde data) are clearly spurious
>> due to the error in ECMWF as published many places".
>>
>> I'll let Leo Haimberger respond to that one. And if v1.2 of Leo's data
>> is "clearly spurious", why did John Christy agree to be a co-author on
>> the Douglass et al. paper which uses upper-air data from v1.2?
>>
>> Santer et al. (2008) comprehensively examined structural uncertainties
>> in the observed upper-air datasets. They looked at two different
>> satellite and seven different radiosonde-based estimates of
>> tropospheric temperature change. As in the case of the surface
>> temperature data, getting the statistical test right was much more
>> important (in terms of the bottom-line conclusions) than the choice of
>> observational upper-air dataset.
>>
>> Christy's next criticism of our IJoC paper is even more absurd. He
>> states that:
>>
>> "Santer et al. 2008 asked a very different question...than we did. Our
>> question was "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best Data
>> (including RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC
>> model agree with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference.
>>
>> Actually, we asked and answered BOTH of these questions. "Tests with
>> individual model realizations" are described in Section 4.1 of Santer
>> et al. (2008), while Section 4.2 covers "Tests with multi-model
>> ensemble-mean trend". As should be obvious - even to John Christy - we
>> did NOT just compare observations with results from individual models.
>>
>> For both types of test ("individual model" and "multi-model average"),
>> we found that, if one applied appropriate statistical tests (which
>> Douglass et al. failed to do), there was no longer a serious
>> discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical lapse
>> rates or in tropical tropospheric temperatures.
>>
>> Again, I find myself shaking my head in amazement. How can John make
>> such patently false claims about our paper? The kindest interpretation
>> is that he is a complete idiot, and has not even bothered to read
>> Santer et al. (2008) before making erroneous criticisms of it. The
>> less kind interpretation is that he is deliberately lying.
>>
>> A good scientist is willing to acknowledge the errors he or she
>> commits (such as applying an inappropriate statistical test). John
>> Christy is not a good scientist. I'm not a religious man, but I'm sure
>> willing to thank some higher authority that Dr. John Christy is not
>> the "gatekeeper" of what constitutes sound science.
>>
>> I hope you don't mind, Tom, but I'm copying this email to some of the
>> other co-authors of the Santer et al. (2008) IJoC paper. They deserve
>> to know about the kind of disinformation Christy is spreading.
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> Thomas R. Karl wrote:
>>> FYI
>>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]
>>> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:54:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> From: John Christy <john.christy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> To: Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> CC: Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> References: <4A534CF9.9080700@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom:
>>>
>>> I've been on a heavy travel schedule and just now getting to emails
>>> I've delayed. I was in Asheville briefly Thursday for a taping for
>>> the CDMP project at the Biltmore estates (don't know why that was the
>>> backdrop) while traveling between meetings in Chapel Hill, Atlanta
>>> and here.
>>>
>>> We disagree on the use of available climate information regarding the
>>> many things related to climate/climate change as I see by your
>>> responses below - that is not unexpected as climate is an ugly,
>>> ambiguous, and complex system studied by a bunch of prima donnas (me
>>> included) and which defies authoritative declarations. I base my
>>> views on hard-core, published literature (some of it mine, but most
>>> of it not), so saying otherwise is not helpful or true. The simple
>>> fact is that the opinions expressed in the CCSP report do not
>>> represent the real range of scientific literature (the IPCC fell into
>>> the same trap - so running to the IPCC's corner doesn't move things
>>> forward).
>>>
>>> I think I can boil my objections to the CCSP Impacts report to this
>>> one idea for the SE (and US): The changes in weather variables
>>> (measured in a systematic settings) of the past 30 years are within
>>> the range of natural variability. That's the statement that should
>>> have been front and center of this whole document because it is
>>> mathematically/scientifically defensible. And, it carries more
>>> weight with planners so you can say to them, "If it happened before,
>>> it will happen again - so get ready now." By the way, my State
>>> Climatologist response to the CCSP was well-received by legislators
>>> and stakeholders (including many in the federal government) and still
>>> gets hits at http://**vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/aosc/.
>>>
>>> There also was a page or so on the tropical troposphere-surface issue
>>> that I didn't talk about on my response. It was wrong because it did
>>> not include all the latest research (i.e. since 2006) on the
>>> continuing and significant difference between the two trends.
>>> Someone was acting as a fierce gatekeeper on that one - citing only
>>> things that agreed with the opinion shown even if poorly done (e.g.
>>> Santer et al. 2008 used ERSST data which I understand has now been
>>> changed in a way that discredits the conclusion there, and
>>> Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 are clearly spurious due to the error in ECMWF
>>> as published many places, but analyzed in detail in Sakamoto and
>>> Christy 2009). The results of Douglass et al. 2007 (not cited by
>>> CCSP) still stand since Santer et al. 2008 asked a very different
>>> question (and used bad data to boot) than we did. Our question was
>>> "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best Data (including
>>> RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC model agree
>>> with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference. The fact
>>> my 2007 tropical paper (the follow-on papers in 2009 were probably
>>> too late, but they substantiate the 2007 paper) was not cited
>>> indicates how biased this section was. Christy et al. 2007 assessed
>>> the accuracy of the datasets (Santer et al. did not - they assumed
>>> all datasets were equal without looking at the published problems)
>>> and we came up with a result that defied the "consensus" of the CCSP
>>> report - so, it was doomed to not be mentioned since it would disrupt
>>> the storyline. (And, as soon as RSS fixes their spurious jump in
>>> 1992, our MSU datasets will be almost indistinguishable.)
>>>
>>> This gets to the issue that the "consensus" reports now are just the
>>> consensus of those who agree with the consensus. The
>>> government-selected authors have become gatekeepers rather than
>>> honest brokers of information. That is a real tragedy, because when
>>> someone becomes a gatekeeper, they don't know they've become a
>>> gatekeeper - and begin to (sincerely) think the non-consensus
>>> scientists are just nuts (... it's more comfortable that way rather
>>> than giving them credit for being skeptical in the face of a paradigm).
>>>
>>> Take care.
>>>
>>> John C.
>>>
>>> p.s. a few quick notes are interspersed below.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thomas C Peterson wrote:
>>>> Hi, John,
>>>> I didn't want this to catch you by surprise.
>>>> Tom
>>>>
>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>> Subject: concerns about the Southeast chapter
>>>> Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> From: Thomas C Peterson <thomas.c.peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> To: jim.obrien@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>> CC: Tom Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear Jim,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> First off and most importantly, congratulations on your recent
>>>> marriage. Anthony said it was the most touching wedding he has ever
>>>> been to. I wish you and your bride all the best.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your comments and for passing on John Christy's
>>>> detailed concerns about the Southeast chapter of our report, /Global
>>>> Climate Change Impacts in the United States/. Please let me respond
>>>> to the key points he raised.
>>>>
>>>> In Dr. John Christy's June 23, 2009 document "Alabama climatologist
>>>> responds to U.S. government report on regional impacts of global
>>>> climate change", he primarily focused on 4 prime concerns:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Assessing changes since 1970.
>>>>
>>>> 2. Statements on hurricanes.
>>>>
>>>> 3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section).
>>>>
>>>> 4. Using models to assess the future.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /1. Assessing changes since 1970./
>>>>
>>>> The Southeast section has 5 figures and one table. One figure is on
>>>> changes in precipitation patterns from 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is
>>>> on patterns of days per year over 90F with two maps, one 1xxx xxxx xxxx,
>>>> the other 2xxx xxxx xxxx. One figure is on the change in freezing days
>>>> per year, 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is on changes to a barrier
>>>> island land from 2002 to 2005. And the last figure was on Sea
>>>> Surface Temperature from 1900 to the present. The table indicates
>>>> trends in temperature and precipitation over two periods, 1xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> and 1xxx xxxx xxxx. As Dr. Christy indicates in his paper, the full
>>>> period and the period since 1970 are behaving differently. To help
>>>> explain this, the table shows them both. Of the 5 figures, only one
>>>> shows the changes over this shorter period.
>>>>
>>>> Since, as the IPCC has indicated, the human impact on climate isn't
>>>> distinguishable from natural variability until about 1950,
>>>> describing the changes experienced in the majority of the time since
>>>> 1950 would be a more logical link to future anthropogenic climate
>>>> change. In most of the report, maps have shown the changes over the
>>>> last 50 years. Because of the distinct behavior of time series of
>>>> precipitation and temperature in the Southeast, discussing the
>>>> period since 1970 seemed more appropriate. Though as the figures and
>>>> table indicate, this shorter period is not the sole or even major
>>>> focus.
>>>
>>> See crux of the matter in email above - looking at the whole time
>>> series is demanded by science. Any 30 or 50-year period will give
>>> changes - blaming the most recent on humans ignores the similar (or
>>> even more rapid) changes that occurred before industrialization (e.g.
>>> western drought in 12th century). The period since 1970 WAS the
>>> major focus in the SE section (mentioned 6 times in two pages). And,
>>> OF COURSE any 30-year sub-period will have different characteristics
>>> than the 100-year population from which it is extracted ... that
>>> doesn't prove anything.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /2. Statements on hurricanes./
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Christy takes issue with the report's statements about
>>>> hurricanes and quotes a line from the report and quotes an
>>>> individual hurricane expert who says that he disagrees with the
>>>> conclusions. The line in the report that Dr. Christy quotes comes
>>>> almost word for word out of CCSP SAP 3.3. While individual
>>>> scientists may disagree with the report's conclusions, this
>>>> conclusion came directly out of the peer-reviewed literature and
>>>> assessments. Dr. Christy also complains that "the report did not
>>>> include a plot of the actual hurricane landfalls". However, the
>>>> section in the Southeast chapter discussing landfalling hurricanes
>>>> states "see /National Climate Change/ section for a discussion of
>>>> past trends and future projections" and sure enough on page 35 there
>>>> is a figure showing land falling hurricanes along with a more in
>>>> depth discussion of hurricanes.
>>>>
>>> You didn't read my State Climatologist response carefully - I
>>> mentioned page 35 and noted again it talked about the most recent
>>> decades (and even then, the graph still didn't go back to 1850).
>>> This hurricane storyline was hit hard by many scientists - hence is
>>> further evidence the report was generated by a gatekeeper mentality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section)./
>>>>
>>>> Moving out of the Southeast, Dr. Christy complains about one figure
>>>> in the Energy Chapter. Citing a climate skeptic's blog which cites
>>>> an individual described as the keeper of the data for the Energy
>>>> Information Administration (EIA), John writes that the rise in
>>>> weather related outages is largely a function of better reporting.
>>>> Yet the insert of weather versus non-weather-related outages shows a
>>>> much greater increase in weather-related outages than
>>>> non-weather-related outages. If all the increases were solely due
>>>> to better reporting, the differences between weather- and
>>>> non-weather-related outages would indicate a dramatic decrease over
>>>> this time period in non-weather related problems such as
>>>> transmission equipment failures, earthquakes, faults in line, faults
>>>> at substations, relaying malfunctions, and vandalism.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks to the efforts of EIA, after they took over the
>>>> responsibility of running the Department of Energy (DOE)
>>>> data-collection process around 1997, data collection became more
>>>> effective. Efforts were made in subsequent years to increase the
>>>> response rate and upgrade the reporting form. It was not until EIA's
>>>> improvement of the data collection that the important decoupling of
>>>> weather- and non-weather-related events (and a corresponding
>>>> increase in the proportion of all events due to weather extremes)
>>>> became visible.
>>>>
>>>> To adjust for potential response-rate biases, we have separated
>>>> weather- and non-weather-related trends into indices and found an
>>>> upward trend only in the weather-related time series.
>>>>
>>>> As confirmed by EIA, *if there were a systematic bias one would
>>>> expect it to be reflected in both data series (especially since any
>>>> given reporting site would report both types of events).*
>>>>
>>>> As an additional precaution, we focused on trends in the number of
>>>> events (rather than customers affected) to avoid fortuitous
>>>> differences caused by the population density where events occur.
>>>> This, however, has the effect of understating the weather impacts
>>>> because of EIA definitions (see survey methodology notes below).
>>>>
>>>> More details are available at:
>>>> http://**eetd.lbl.gov/emills/pubs/grid-disruptions.html
>>>
>>> The data were not systematically taken and should not have been shown
>>> .. basic rule of climate.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /4. Using models to assess the future./
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone say anything about the future of the Southeast's climate?
>>>> Evidently according to John Christy, the answer is no. The basic
>>>> physics of the greenhouse effect and why increasing greenhouse gases
>>>> are warming and should be expected to continue to warm the planet
>>>> are well known and explained in the /Global Climate Change/ section
>>>> of the report. Climate models are used around the world to both
>>>> diagnose the observed changes in climate and to provide projections
>>>> for the future. There is a huge body of peer-reviewed literature,
>>>> including a large number of peer-reviewed climate change
>>>> assessments, supporting this use. But in Dr. Christy's "view,"
>>>> models should not be used for projections of the future, especially
>>>> for the Southeast. The report based, and indeed must base, its
>>>> results on the huge body of peer-reviewed scientific literature
>>>> rather than the view of one individual scientist.
>>>
>>> No one has proven models are capable of long-range forecasting.
>>> Modelers write and review their own literature - there are millions
>>> of dollars going into these enterprises, so what would you expect?
>>> Publication volume shouldn't impress anyone. The simple fact is we
>>> demonstrated in a straightforward and reproducible way that the
>>> actual trends over the past 30, 20, and 10 years are outside of the
>>> envelop of model predictions ... no one has disputed that finding
>>> with an alternative analysis - even when presented before
>>> congressional hearings where the opportunity for disagreement was
>>> openly available.
>>>>
>>>> I hope this helps relieve some of your concerns.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Tom Peterson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ************************************************************
>>> John R. Christy
>>> Director, Earth System Science Center voice: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Professor, Atmospheric Science fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Alabama State Climatologist
>>> University of Alabama in Huntsville
>>> http://**www.**nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html
>>>
>>> Mail: ESSC-Cramer Hall/University of Alabama in Huntsville,
>>> Huntsville AL 35899
>>> Express: Cramer Hall/ESSC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville AL 35805
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> *Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D.*
>>>
>>> Director, NOAA