Selected CRU Emails, Part II: Independence of the Press?

In looking through the Hadley CRU emails, I remembered that there was a Mr. Revkin of the New York Times who reported on climate events.

I came up with a dozen emails, which I reproduce here in their entirety, with maybe a couple of comments at the end.

From: Andy Revkin To: Tim Osborn Subject: Re: mann's thoughts Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:44:44 -0400

again, takeaway msg is that mann method can only work if past variability same as variability during period used to calibrate your method.

so it could be correct, but could be very wrong as well. by the way, von storch doesn't concur with osborn/briffa on the idea that higher past variability would mean there'd likley be high future variability as well (bigger response to ghg forcing). he simply says it's time to toss hockeystick and start again, doesn't take it further than that.

At 09:40 AM 9/28/2004, you wrote: >Dear Andy, > >our schematic figure is attached. > >Tim > > > >Dr Timothy J Osborn >Climatic Research Unit >School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia >Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK > >e-mail: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >phone: +44 1603 592089 >fax: +44 1603 507784 >web: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ >sunclock: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm

Andrew C. Revkin, Environment Reporter, The New York Times 229 West 43d St. NY, NY 10036 Tel: 212-556-7326, Fax: 509-357-0965 (via www.efax.com, received as email)

From: Keith Briffa To: chris.folland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading Date: Tue Feb 8 16:44:17 2005

X-Sender: mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.1.1 Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 16:04:57 -0500 To: Phil Jones , rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tom crowley , tom crowley , mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Keith Briffa , Caspar Ammann From: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading X-UEA-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-UEA-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-UEA-MailScanner-SpamScore: s sorry, forgot to attach the paper... mike

Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:54:15 -0500 To: Phil Jones , rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Crowley, Tom Crowley, mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Keith Briffa From: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading

Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:52:53 -0500 To: Andy Revkin From: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading Hi Andy, The McIntyre and McKitrick paper is pure scientific fraud. I think you'll find this reinforced by just about any legitimate scientist in our field you discuss this with. Please see the RealClimate response: [1]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=111 and also: [2]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114 The Moberg et al paper is at least real science. But there are some real problems with it (you'll want to followup w/ people like Phil Jones for a 2nd opinion). While the paper actually reinforces the main conclusion of previous studies (it also finds the late 20th century to be the warmest period of the past two millennia), it challenges various reconstructions using tree-ring information (which includes us, but several others such as Jones et al, Crowley, etc). I'm pretty sure, by the way, that a very similar version of the paper was rejected previously by Science. A number of us are therefore very surprised that Nature is publishing it, given a number of serious problems: Their method for combining frequencies is problematic and untested: A. they only use a handful of records, so there is a potentially large sampling bias. B. worse, they use different records for high-frequencies and low-frequencies, so the bias isn't even the same--the reconstruction is apples and oranges. C. The wavelet method is problematic. We have found in our own work that you cannot simply combine the content in different at like frequencies, because different proxies have different signal vs. noise characteristics at different frequencies--for some records, there century-scale variability is likely to be pure noise. They end up therfore weighting noise as much as signal. For some of the records used, there are real age model problems. The timescale isn't known to better than +/- a couple hundred years in several cases. So when they average these records together, the century-scale variability is likely to be nonsense. D. They didn't do statistical verification. This is absolutely essential for such reconstructions (see e.g. the recent Cook et al and Luterbacher et al papers in Science). They should have validated their reconstruction against long-instrumental records, as we and many others have. Without having done so, there is no reason to believe the reconstruction has any reliability. This is a major problem w/ the paper. It is complicated by the fact that they don't produce a pattern, but just a hemispheric mean--that makes it difficult to do a long-term verification. But they don't attempt any sort of verification at all! There are some decades known to be warm from the available instrumental records (1730s, some in the 16th century) which the Moberg reconstruction completely misses--the reconstruction gives the impression that all years are cold between 1500 and 1750. The reconstruction would almost certainly fail cross-validation against long instrumental records. If so, it is an unreliable estimate of past changes. We're surprised the Nature Reviewers didn't catch this. E. They also didn't validate their method against a model (where I believe it would likely fail). We have done so w/ our own "hybrid frequency-domain" method that combines information separately at low and high-frequencies, but taking into account the problem mentioned above. This is described in: Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., [3]Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions: Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target Domain, Journal of Climate, in press (2005). In work that is provisionally accepted in "Journal of Climate" (draft attached), we show that our method gives the correct history using noisy "pseudoproxy" records derived from a climate model simulation with large past changes in radiative forcing. Moberg et al have not tested their method in such a manner. F. They argue selectively for favorable comparison w/ other work: (1) Esper et al: when authors rescaled the reconstruction using the full instrumental record (Cook et al, 2004), they found it to be far more similar to Mann et al, Crowley and Lowery, Jones et al, and the roughly dozen or so other empirical and model estimates consistent w/ it. Several studies, moreover [see e.g.: Shindell, D.T., Schmidt, G.A., Mann, M.E., Faluvegi, G., [4]Dynamic winter climate response to large tropical volcanic eruptions since 1600, Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D05104, doi: 10.1029/2003JD004151, 2004.] show that extratropical, land-only summer temperatures, which Esper et al emphasises, are likely to biased towards greater variability--so its an apples and oranges comparison anyway. (2) von Storch et al: There are some well known problems here: (a) their forcing is way too large (Foukal at al in Science a couple months back indicates maybe 5 times too large), DKMI uses same model, more conventional forcings, and get half the amplitude and another paper submitted recently by the Belgium modeling group suggests that some severe spin-up/initialization problems give the large century-scale swings in the model--these are not reproducible. (3) Boreholes: They argue that Boreholes are "physical measurements" but many papers in the published literature have detailed the various biases in using continental ground surface temperature to estimate past surface air temperature changes--changing snow cover gives rise to a potentially huge bias (see e.g. : Mann, M.E., Schmidt, G.A., [5]Ground vs. Surface Air Temperature Trends: Implications for Borehole Surface Temperature Reconstructions,Geophysical Research Letters, 30 (12), 1607, doi: 10.1029/2003GL017170, 2003). Methods that try to correct for this give smaller amplitude changes from borehole temperatures: Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Keimig, F.T., [6]Optimal Surface Temperature Reconstructions using Terrestrial Borehole Data, Journal of Geophysical Research, 108 (D7), 4203, doi: 10.1029/2002JD002532, 2003] [[7]Correction(Rutherford and Mann, 2004)] Most reconstructions and model estimates still *sandwich" the Mann et al reconstruction. See e.g. figure 5 in: Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., [8]Climate Over Past Millennia, Reviews of Geophysics, 42, RG2002, doi: 10.1029/2003RG000143, 2004. Ironically, MM say our 15th century is too cold, while Moberg et al say its too warm. Hmmm.... To recap, I hope you don't mention MM at all. It really doesn't deserve any additional publicity. Moberg et al is more deserving of discussion, but, as outlined above, there are some real problems w/ it. I have reason to believe that Nature's own commentary by Schiermeier will actually be somewhat critical of it. I'm travelling and largely unavailable until monday. If you need to talk, you can possibly reach me at 434-227-6969 over the weekend. I hope this is of some help. Literally got to run now... mike At 02:14 PM 2/4/2005, Andy Revkin wrote:

Hi all, There is a fascinating paper coming in Nature next week (Moberg of Stockholm Univ., et al) that uses mix of sediment and tree ring data to get a new view of last 2,000 years. Very warped hockeystick shaft (centuries-scale variability very large) but still pronounced 'unusual' 1990's blade. i'd like your reaction/thoughts for story i'll write for next thursday's Times. also, is there anything about the GRL paper forthcoming from Mc & Mc that warrants a response? I can send you the Nature paper as pdf if you agree not to redistribute it (you know the embargo rules). that ok? thanks for getting in touch! andy

______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [9]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: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [10]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: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [11]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

-- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.

Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [12]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=111 2. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114 3. http://www.realclimate.org/RuthetalJClim2004.pdf 4. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Shindelletal-jgr04.pdf 5. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/gissgst03.pdf 6. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/borehole-jgr03.pdf 7. http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/shared/articles/JGRBoreholeCorrection04.pdf 8. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/JonesMannROG04.pdf 9. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 10. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 11. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 12. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

From: "Michael E. Mann" To: Tim Osborn Subject: Re: [Fwd: u seen?] Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:04:40 -0500 Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Cc: Phil Jones , Keith Briffa

fair enough, I'll go w/ flimsy. The real problem is the fairly inflammatory wording of this, and the really flawed interpretations w.r.t. implicatinos for natural vs. anthropogenic variaiblity.

normally I'd ignore, but the fact that Andy Revkin received this suggests they are trying to publicize this review paper, which I find a bit odd...

> Hi Mike, > > I've seen this before (and probably Keith has too) because our EU > "SOAP" project supported Rob Wilson, the second author. I'd say that > it is "flimsy" rather than "shoddy"! Still, it's only supposed to be > a "viewpoint" rather than new science. > > Tim > > At 15:31 30/11/2005, Michael E. Mann wrote: > >> thought you guys would be interested. pretty shoddy stuff in my view... >> >> mike >> >> -- >> Michael E. Mann >> Associate Professor >> Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) >> >> Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 >> 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 >> The Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >> University Park, PA 16802-5013 >> >> http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm >> >> >> >> >> Return-Path: >> X-Original-To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >> Delivered-To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >> Received: from tr12n04.aset.psu.edu (tr12g04.aset.psu.edu >> [128.118.146.130]) >> by mail.meteo.psu.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2027520401A >> for ; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:15:10 -0500 (EST) >> Received: from nytimes.com (nat-hq-gate-02.nytimes.com >> [199.181.175.222]) >> by tr12n04.aset.psu.edu (8.13.2/8.13.2) with ESMTP id >> jAUFF8P22437280 >> for ; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:15:08 -0500 >> Message-Id: <6.1.2.0.2.20051130101420.02d14460@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> >> X-Sender: anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.2.0 >> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:14:45 -0500 >> To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >> From: Andy Revkin >> Subject: u seen? >> Mime-Version: 1.0 >> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; >> boundary="=====================_79165303==.ALT" >> X-NYTOriginatingHost: , 10.149.64.222 >> X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-sophos >> X-PSU-Spam-Flag: NO >> X-PSU-Spam-Hits: 0.695 >> X-PSU-Spam-Level: * >> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on >> mail.meteo.psu.edu >> X-Spam-Level: >> X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.6 required=5.0 >> tests=AWL,BAYES_00,HTML_00_10, >> HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_QP_LONG_LINE autolearn=no version=3.0.2 >> >> purely fyi.. u seen? >> >> >>> Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 24, Issues 20-21 , November 2005, >>> Pages 2164-2166 >>> http://tinyurl.com/b95ee >>> >>> Climate: past ranges and future changes >>> >>> Jan Esper a), Robert J.S. Wilson b), David C. Frank a), Anders >>> Moberg c), Heinz Wanner d) and J

From: "Michael E. Mann" To: Stefan Rahmstorf , Gavin Schmidt , Caspar Ammann , Ben Santer , "Raymond S. Bradley" , Malcolm Hughes , Phil Jones , James Hansen Subject: [Fwd: IPCC and sea level rise, hi-res paleodata, etc.] Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:13:54 -0500 Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Curt, I can't believe the nonsense you are spouting, and I furthermore cannot imagine why you would be so presumptuous as to entrain me into an exchange with these charlatans. What ib earth are you thinking? You're not even remotely correct in your reading of the report, first of all. The AR4 came to stronger conclusions that IPCC(2001) on the paleoclimate conclusions, finding that the recent warmth is likely anomalous in the last 1300 years, not just the last 1000 years. The AR4 SPM very much backed up the key findings of the TAR The Jones et al reconstruction which you refer to actually looks very much like ours, and the statement about more variability referred to the 3 reconstructions (Jones et al, Mann et al, Briffa et a) shown in the TAR, not just Mann et al. The statement also does not commit to whether or not those that show more variability are correct or not. Some of those that do (for example, Moberg et al and Esper et al) show no similarity to each other. I find it terribly irresponsible for you to be sending messages like this to Singer and Monckton. You are speaking from ignorance here, and you must further know how your statements are going to be used. You could have sought some feedback from others who would have told you that you are speaking out of your depth on this. By instead simply blurting all of this nonsense out in an email to these sorts charlatans you've done some irreversible damage. shame on you for such irresponsible behavior! Mike Mann -- Michael E. Mann Associate Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm Return-Path: X-Original-To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Delivered-To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Received: from tr12n04.aset.psu.edu (tr12g04.aset.psu.edu [128.118.146.130]) by mail.meteo.psu.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 160CA2D00B0 for ; Mon, 5 Feb 2007 19:53:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from web60817.mail.yahoo.com (web60817.mail.yahoo.com [209.73.178.225]) by tr12n04.aset.psu.edu (8.13.6/8.13.2) with SMTP id l160rCcf2019402 for ; Mon, 5 Feb 2007 19:53:12 -0500 Received: (qmail 49251 invoked by uid 60001); 6 Feb 2007 00:53:08 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Conten t-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID; b=folyoWjSumv93mmwcsECLmtGDEGDd6Y3/mv2WavTLrekb/5qH8IhkAvbh8+QfRCfOALVKIAxeGEmhPVbFkhVMGOET Ykx4oF2q6wyDIVXVl+BSd06vv8o6hjSKJ/M+li1R05sH7KOixpNoxvSdjQNCDt1US3zQI3bmCWA4epZNw8=; X-YMail-OSG: gSuRbqAVM1nhqat8Zt4GNlp5xY8qoAOh_P_TmtEgvuaLnZ0ixbR.Ev2V_eFEhTnCZQ-- Received: from [128.115.27.11] by web60817.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:53:07 PST Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 16:53:07 -0800 (PST) From: Curt Covey Subject: IPCC and sea level rise, hi-res paleodata, etc. To: Christopher Monckton , Fred Singer Cc: Jim Hansen , mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Clifford Lee In-Reply-To: <20061229145211.611FC1CE304@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="0-1893172854-1170723187=:47787" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <805971.47787.qm@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-sophos X-PSU-Spam-Flag: NO X-PSU-Spam-Hits: 0 Christopher and Fred, Now that the latest IPCC WG1 SPM is published, I can venture more opinions on the above-referenced subjects. It is indeed striking that IPCC's estimate of maximum plausible 21st century sea-level rise has decreased over time. The latest estimate is 0.5 meters for the A2 emissions scenario (not much higher from the 0.4 meter estimate for the A1B emissions scenario, which the Wall Street Journal editorial page has made much of). On the other hand, the IPCC seems to have taken a pass on Hansen's argument. The IPCC says their estimates are "excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow . . . because a basis in published literature is lacking." In this one respect (sea level rise) I agree with today's Journal editorial that the science is not yet settled. Unfortunately, the editorial runs completely off the tracks thereafter by (1) comparing 2006 vs. 2001 surface temperatures, among all the 150 or so years on record, and (2) asserting a "significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003" based apparently on one published data-set that contradicts all the others. It is not appropriate to cherry-pick data points this way. It's like trying to figure out long-term trends in the stock market by comparing today's value of the Dow with last Tuesday's value. Re high-resolution paleodata, I never liked it that the 2001 IPCC report pictured Mann's without showing alternates. Phil's Jones' data was also available at the time. Focusing so exclusively on Mann was unfair in particular to Mann himself, who thereby became the sole target of criticism in the Wall Street Journal etc. It now seems clear from looking at all the different analyses (e.g. as summarized in last year's NRC review by North et al.) that Mann is an outlier though not egregiously so. Of course, like any good scientist Mann argues that his methods get you closer to the truth than anyone else. But the bottom line for me is simply that all the different studies find that the rate of warming over the last 50-100 years is unusually high compared with previous centuries. Summarizing all this, the latest IPCC does back off a bit from the previous one. It says on Page 8, "Some recent studies indicate greater variability [than Mann] in [pre-industrial] Northern Hemisphere temperatures than suggested in the TAR . . ." The wording is perhaps insufficiently apologetic, but I find it hard to object strenuously to it in light of the main point noted in the last paragraph. If you want to discuss any of this further, let me know. I attach my latest presentation -- and would appreciate seeing both Christopher's report mentioned in the Journal editorial and Fred's comment on Rahmstorf's article published in Science last week. Best regards, Curt Christopher Monckton wrote:

Dear Mr. Covey - Many thanks for coming back to me so quickly. You mention Hansen's recent papers. I have recently been looking at an (attached) earlier projection of his - the projection of temperature increase which he made to the US Congress in 1988, effectively starting the "global-warming" scare. Updating his graph shows that annual global mean land and sea surface air temperature is not rising anything like as fast as his attention-grabbing but now manifestly-misconceived Scenario A suggested. Indeed, it is beginning to look as though temperature is beginning to fall below his estimate based on CO2 having been stabilized in 1988. Morner, the world's leading authority on sea level, has been very clear in saying there is very little evidence to justify the IPCC's sea-level projections. The IPCC itself forecast up to 0.94m sea level rise in a century in its 1996 report; up to 0.88m in its 2001 report; and now 0.43m in its 2007 report. If one loosely defines whatever t he IPCC says as the "consensus", then not only does the "consensus" not agree with itself: it is galloping in the direction of the formerly-derided sceptics.

As to future world population, I did some research on this several years ago, because the UN was making alarmist noises and this alerted me to the likelihood that we were being fed political propaganda masquerading as science. I learned that the prime determinant of dP in any population is the general level of prosperity in that population. As prosperity increases, dP tends to zero. The prosperity factor is many times more potent as an influence on dP than even enforced, artificial contraception or child-killing. Since I expect world prosperity to increase in the coming century, I regard it as near-certain that dP will tend to zero in the next half-century. The reason for the plummet thereafter is the widespread availability and use of artificial methods of birth-control. The combined effects of rising general prosperity and the general availability of artificial birth-control on depressing indigenous population are already discernible in all those Western European populations not having to cope with mass immigration from poorer countries. In Russia, the indigenous population is falling so fast that Muslims will soon form more than half the population.

As to the "hockey-stick" problem, the NAS report does state very clearly that, though the conclusion of Mann et al. is "plausible", evidence going back more than 400 years before the present is increasingly unreliable, and that very few reliable conclusions can be drawn if one goes back more than 900 years. This illustrates one of the problems bedevilling the climate-change question: too much of the data and processes on the basis of which we are trying to draw conclusions are unreliable, incomplete or very poorly understood. This should not deter scientists from trying to make increasingly intelligent guesses: but anyone with diplomatic knowledge of the fast-emerging, fast-growing fast-polluters such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil will tell you that the ruling regimes in these countries will not try to prevent their people from enjoying the fossil-fuelled economic growth we have already enjoyed unless and until the science is honest, the uncertainties are admitted and the case is strengthened by the accumulation of measurements and the improvement of analytical techniques in the coming years.

Finally, you are right to take me to task for using words such as "rubbish" and "useless". I apologize. That said, a validation skill not significantly different from zero indicates that no valid scientific conclusion may be drawn from the "hockey-stick" graph.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Curt Covey" To: "Christopher Monckton" Subject: Sea level rise, hi-res paleodata, etc. Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:05:51 -0800 (PST) Dear Dr. Monckton, Thanks for copying me on your correspondence with Fred and prompting me to look again at IPCC sea level rise estimates for 2100. I agree you are comparing like-for-like. The 2001 report has an upper limit of 0.7 meters for the A1B scenario. If the 2007 report lowers this to 0.43 meters (or if the number gets raised again before the report is made final) it will certainly be appropriate to ask why. After reading Hansen's recent papers, I don't see how to justify such small upper limits. It also seems obvious to me (and apparently to you but not to Fred) that the A2 scenario would entail more sea level rise than A1B. Regarding the relative likelihoods of scenarios, I don't agree with you that it's "almost certain" that world population will "plummet" in the second half of this century. Regarding the issue of recent vs. earlier global warming, when I look at the totality of data compiled by North et al. this year for their NAS / NRC report (see attached graphic), it seems clear that most of the warming since about 1850 (or 1900) occurred in recent decades. Going farther back in time, the data are of course more uncertain and estimates vary, but it appears that the warming rate for the 20th century was unusually high compared with the past 2000 years. This conclusion follows whether or not one includes Mike Mann's data. For the record, I must add that I do not share your characterization of Mann's work as "rubbish" or "useless." Nor do I see a situation of "flagrant dishonesty in which the UN and the scientific journals persist long after the falsity of their absurd and extreme claims has been properly demonstrated." Sincerely, Curt Covey Christopher Monckton wrote:

Temperature: This question, like so many others to do with supposed "climate change", is bedevilled by the recency of reliable, instrument-based observations. Nevertheless, some conclusions can be attempted. The Dalton Minimum is generally considered to have come to an end in 1910. The five-year mean global land and sea surface air temperature anomaly for 1908-1912, calculated from NCDC annual figures, was --0.3579K. By 1940 there had been a rapid increase of 0.4700K to +1121K. By 2004 (again taking the five-year average, including 2006) there had been a further increase of +0.4413K to +0.5534. The mean annual increase in the 30 years 1010-1940 was thus 0.0157K more than two and a quarter times greater than the 0.0069K mean annual increase in the 64 years to 2004. Mean global temperature has hardly risen at all in the five years since the IPCC's last report. And the fact of the 20th-century temperature increase tells us nothing of the cause. It is interesting, for instance, that the polar icecaps on Mars are receding, inferentially in response to increased solar activity. At any rate, it is certain that anthropogenic planetary warming is not responsible. It is possible, therefore, that most of the warming both before and after 1940 was heliogenic.

Sea level: Your correspondent does not disagree with my statement that the IPCC has revised its upper-bound estimate of sea level rise to 17 inches (0.43m). He says, however, that this upper bound is based on the A1 scenario, by which world population will peak in mid-century at ~9bn and fall thereafter. So was the 2001 report's upper bound of 0.88m. I was correctly comparing like for like. The Sunday Telegraph, which reported these figures, has been told that the revisions arise from "better data" now available to the IPCC, supporting skeptics' conclusions that the IPCC's figures are little better than exaggerated guesses. Morner (2004) concludes firmly that there is little evidence for sea level rising any faster now than it has in geologically-recent times. Your correspondent says that the A2 scenario is "business-as-usual": in fact, it is an extreme scenario regarded by very nearly all serious demographers as absurdly unrealistic, in that it posits an increase in world population to 15bn by 2100, when it is now almost certain that rising prosperity and the consequent decrease in birth rates will cause population to peak somewhere between 9bn and 10bn in mid-century, and plummet thereafter.

Reliability of the IPCC's reports: I understand that the IPCC's 2007 draft does not contain an apology for the defective "hockey-stick" graph, which the US National Academy of Sciences has described as having "a validation skill not significantly different from zero". In plain English, this means the graph was rubbish. It is difficult to have confidence in a body which, after its principal conclusion is demonstrated in the peer-reviewed, scientific literature and in numerous independent reports as having been useless, fails to make the appropriate withdrawal and apology. Worse, the UN continues to use the defective graph. This failure of basic academic honesty on the IPCC's part was the main reason why I began my investigation of the supposed climate-change "consensus".

The supposed scientific "consensus": Your correspondent seems unaware of the letter written by 61 Canadian and other scientists in climate and related fields to the Canadian Prime Minister. At the end of the attached commentary on Al Gore's recent attempt to rebut my articles on climate change in the Sunday Telegraph, beneath the references, I have appended the full text of the letter and the names, qualifications and then-current affiliations of all 61 scientists. Al gore and others tend to lean rather more heavily than is wise upon a single, rather bad one-page essay in Science for their contention that there is a scientific consensus to the effect that most of the warming in the past half-century was anthropogenic. The essay was by Oreskes (2004), who said that she had analyzed 928 abstracts mentioning "climate change" published in peer-reviewed journals on the Thomson ISI database between 1993 and 2003, and that none of the 928 had expressed dissent from the "consensus". Dr. Benny Peiser of Liverpool John Moores University subsequently made a more careful enquiry. Science had been compelled to publish an erratum to the effect that the search term used by Oreskes had not been the neutral "climate change" - which returned some 12,000 articles, but the more loaded "global climate change", which returned 1,117 articles. Of these, Dr. Peiser found that only 1% had explicitly endorsed the "consensus" as defined by Oreskes"; that almost three times as many had explicitly expressed doubt or outright disagreement; and that less than one-third had expressed explicit or implicit agreement with the "consensus". He wrote a paper for Science pointing out these serious defects, which pointed to a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of Oreskes. Science at first asked him to shorten his paper, and then said that, because conclusions like his had been widely reported on the internet, his paper would not be published. As far as I can discover, Science has not published any corrigendum to this day, providing further confirmation of what I have long suspected: that the leading peer-reviewed journals, having unwisely taken strongly-political editorial positions on the question of climate change, are no longer objective.

The need for honest science: It was only after years of increasingly-public pressure that Nature was induced to oblige Mann et al., the authors of the useless "hockey-stick" graph that starred in the IPCC's 2001 report, to publish a mealy-mouthed, partial and unsatisfactory corrigendum. In such an environment of flagrant dishonesty in which the UN and the scientific journals persist long after the falsity of their absurd and extreme claims has been properly demonstrated, it is in my view unreasonable to expect China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and other fast-polluting countries to deny to themselves the fossil-fuelled economic growth which we in the West have been fortunate enough to enjoy. Until there is honest science, no one will believe either the UN or the journals to the extent of adopting the expensive and (on my calculations) probably futile remedial measures which they and their supporters so stridently advocate. - Christopher

----- Original Message ----- From: "S. Fred Singer" To: "Curt Covey" Subject: Re: Belated response to "Say You're Sorry" Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:37:25 -0500 At 07:15 PM 12/18/2006, Curt Covey wrote:

Received your 5 May 2006 e-mail via Andy Revkin last week. Regarding the Wall Street Journal and "other forums that substitute quips, showmanship, hyperbole, and conjecture for substantial discussion," the following recent quips from their Letters to the Editor may interest you: Fred Singer's claim (13 December) that "more than 70% of the warming observed since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2." Fred has been saying this for a long time. I think it was true 20 years ago. Up-to-date records (e.g. this year's NAS report from North et al.) show that much more than half the warming since c.1850 has occurred after 1940.

Dear Curt, I am sure you are aware of the fact that such ratios depend entirely on the choice of time intervals. I don't want to quibble but surely the relevant fact is that most agree (incl IPCC -- but not Tom Wigley) that the pre-1940 warming was mostly due to natural causes.

Lord Monckton's claim (13 December) that "The U.N. [presumably IPCC] is about to cut its high-end estimate of sea-level rise in 2100 from three feet to just 17 inches." We are not supposed to discuss IPCC reports before they become final, but the last draft I saw does indeed project 17 inches (0.43 meters) of sea-level rise as the high-end climate model estimate from Emissions Scenario A1B. The scenario itself, however, is one in which (to quote IPCC) "global population peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies" has atmospheric CO2 leveling off by the end of the century. A business-as-usual scenario (like A2) would give much higher sea-level rise by 2100.

I don't think so. But you will have to read my forthcoming response to Rahmstorf (in SciencExpress). Meanwhile, peruse the attached.

Senator Inhofe's comment today (18 December) that "60 scientists" together with "Claude Allegre, a leading French scientist who is a member of both the U.S. and French National Academies of Sciences" have concluded that agreements like Kyoto are "unnecessary" because "the cause of global warming is 'unknown.'" Presumably true, but so what? Allegre is an award-winning geochemist; the other 60 scientists are unidentified. There are tens of thousands of members of the American Geophysical Union alone (many of whom are petroleum geologists). I'm sure you can find a few hundred to support any claim you want to make about global warming.

I am one of the 60 -- and I am sure you know most of the other 59. Best for 2007! Fred

S. Fred Singer, President Science & Environmental Policy Project 1600 S. Eads St, #712-S Arlington, VA 22202-2907 Tel: 703/920-2744 [1]http ://[2]www.sepp.org Read about what is really causing warming Unstoppable Global Warming : Every 1500 Years (Natural climate cycles as seen in the geological record) by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery Rowman & Littlefield (2007) 260 pp. $25.00 plus $5 S&H Send tax-deductible donations to SEPP << Supreme arguments2.doc >>

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From: carl mears To: Tom Wigley Subject: Re: [Fwd: sorry to take your time up, but really do need a scrub of this singer/christy/etc effort] Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:17:24 -0800 Cc: Phil Jones ,santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Wigley , "Thorne, Peter" , Steven Sherwood , John Lanzante ,Karl Taylor , "'Dian J. Seidel'" , Melissa Free ,Frank Wentz

But you are assuming that there is no noise (instrumental or "weather") in the observations.

-Carl At 01:57 PM 12/4/2007, Tom Wigley wrote: >All, > >Depends on whether the runs are independent. Are models independent? > >A billion runs would indeed reduce the statistical uncertainty to near >zero. What is left (if one compared with absolutely correct observed data) >is the mean model bias. > >Tom. > >++++++++++++++++++ > >carl mears wrote: > >>Hi Ben, Phil and others >> >>To me, the fundamental error is 2.3.1. Expecting the observed values to >>lie within >>+/- 2*sigma(SE) (i.e. sigma/(sqrt(N-1)) of the distribution of N model >>trends) is just >>wrong. >>If this were correct, we could just run the models a lot of times, say a >>billion or so, and have a >>very, very, very small sigma(SE) (assuming the sigma didn't grow >>much) and we'd never >>have "agreement" with anything. Absurd. >> >>Does IJC publish comments? >> >>-Carl >> >>At 02:09 AM 12/4/2007, Phil Jones wrote: >> >>> Ben, >>> It sure does! Have read briefly - the surface arguments are wrong. >>> I know editors have difficulty finding reviewers, but letting this one >>> pass is awful - and IJC was improving. >>> >>> Cheers >>> Phil >>> >>> >>>At 17:53 30/11/2007, Ben Santer wrote: >>> >>>>Dear folks, >>>> >>>>I'm forwarding this to you in confidence. We all knew that some >>>>journal, somewhere, would eventually publish this stuff. Turns out that >>>>it was the International Journal of Climatology. Strengthens the need >>>>for some form of update of the Santer et al. (2005) Science paper. >>>> >>>>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: (925) 422-2486 >>>>FAX: (925) 422-7675 >>>>email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>X-Account-Key: account1 >>>>Return-Path: >>>>Received: from mail-2.llnl.gov ([unix socket]) >>>> by mail-2.llnl.gov (Cyrus v2.2.12) with LMTPA; >>>> Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:39:49 -0800 >>>>Received: from smtp.llnl.gov (nspiron-3.llnl.gov [128.115.41.83]) >>>> by mail-2.llnl.gov (8.13.1/8.12.3/LLNL evision: 1.6 $) with >>>> ESMTP id lAUGdl5E004790 >>>> for ; Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:39:48 -0800 >>>>X-Attachments: DCPS-proofs_IJC07.pdf >>>>X-IronPort-AV: E=McAfee;i="5100,188,5173"; a="21323766" >>>>X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.23,235,1194249600"; >>>> d="pdf'?scan'208,217";a="21323766" >>>>Received: from nsziron-1.llnl.gov ([128.115.249.81]) >>>> by smtp.llnl.gov with ESMTP; 30 Nov 2007 08:39:47 -0800 >>>>X-Attachments: DCPS-proofs_IJC07.pdf >>>>X-IronPort-AV: E=McAfee;i="5100,188,5173"; a="6674079" >>>>X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.23,235,1194249600"; >>>> d="pdf'?scan'208,217";a="6674079" >>>>Received: from smtp-nv-vip1.nytimes.com (HELO nytimes.com) >>>>([199.181.175.116]) >>>> by nsziron-1.llnl.gov with ESMTP; 30 Nov 2007 08:39:43 -0800 >>>>Message-Id: <6.2.5.6.2.20071130111858.03540590@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> >>>>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.2.5.6 >>>>Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:38:52 -0500 >>>>To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, broccoli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >>>>From: Andrew Revkin >>>>Subject: sorry to take your time up, but really do need a scrub of this >>>> singer/christy/etc effort >>>>Mime-Version: 1.0 >>>>Content-Type: multipart/mixed; >>>> boundary="=====================_67524015==_" >>>>X-NYTOriginatingHost: [10.149.144.50] >>>> >>>>hi, >>>>for moment please do not distribute or discuss. >>>>trying to get a sense of whether singer / christy can get any traction >>>>with this at all. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>*_ ANDREW C. REVKIN >>>>_*The New York Times / Environment / Dot >>>>Earth Blog >>>>620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018-1405 >>>>phone: 212-556-7326 fax: 509/ /-357-0965 mobile: 914-441-5556 >>> >>> >>>Prof. Phil Jones >>>Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 >>>School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 >>>University of East Anglia >>>Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >>>NR4 7TJ >>>UK >>> >>>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >> >> >> >>Dr. Carl Mears >>Remote Sensing Systems >>438 First Street, Suite 200, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 >>mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >>707-545-2904 x21 >>707-545-2906 (fax)) >

Dr. Carl Mears Remote Sensing Systems 438 First Street, Suite 200, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 707-545-2904 x21 707-545-2906 (fax))

From: Ben Santer To: Peter Thorne Subject: Re: [Fwd: sorry to take your time up, but really do need a scrub of this singer/christy/etc effort] Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:04:05 -0800 Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Cc: Carl Mears , Leopold Haimberger , Karl Taylor , Tom Wigley , Phil Jones , Tom Wigley , Steve Sherwood , John Lanzante , Dian Seidel , Melissa Free , Frank Wentz , Steve Klein

Thank you very much for all of your emails, and my apologies for the delay in replying - I've been on travel for much of the past week.

Peter, I think you've done a nice job in capturing some of my concerns about the Douglass et al. paper. Our CCSP Report helped to illustrate that there were large structural uncertainties in both the radiosonde- and MSU-based estimates of tropospheric temperature change. The scientific evidence available at the time we were finalizing the CCSP Report - from Sherwood et al. (2005) and the (then-unpublished) Randel and Wu paper - strongly suggested that a residual cooling bias existed in the sonde-based estimates of tropospheric temperature change. As you may recall, we showed results from both the RATPAC and HadAT2 radiosonde datasets in the CCSP Report and the Santer et al. (2005) Science paper. From the latter (see, e.g., our Figure 3B and Figures 4C,D), it was clear that there were physically-significant differences between the simulated temperature trends in the tropical lower troposphere (over 1979 to 1999) and the trends estimated from RATPAC, HadAT2, and UAH data. In both the Science paper and the CCSP Report, we judged that residual biases in the observations provided the most likely explanation for these model-versus-data trend discrepancies.

Douglass et al. come to a fundamentally different conclusion, and ascribe model-versus-data differences to model error. They are not really basing this conclusion on new model data or on new observational data. The only "new" observational dataset that they use is an early version of Leo Haimberger's radiosonde dataset (RAOBCORE v1.2). Leo's dataset was under development at the time all of us were working on the CCSP Report and the Santer et al. Science paper. It was not available for our assessment in 2005. As Leo has already shared with you, newer versions of RAOBCORE (v1.3 and v1.4) show amplification of surface warming in the tropical troposphere, in reasonable agreement with the model results that we presented in Fig. 3B of our Science paper. Douglass et al. did not use these newer versions of RAOBCORE v1.2. Nor did Douglass et al. use any "inconvenient" observational datasets (such as the NESDIS-based MSU T2 dataset of Zou et al., or the MSU T2 product of Vinnikov and Grody) showing pronounced tropospheric warming over the satellite era. Nor did Douglass et al. discuss the "two timescale issue" that formed an important part of our Science paper (i.e., how could models and multiple observational datasets show amplification behavior that was consistent in terms of monthly variability but inconsistent in terms of decadal trends?) Nor did Douglass et al. fairly portray results from Peter's 2007 GRL paper. In my personal opinion, Douglass et al. have ignored all scientific evidence that is in disagreement with their view of how the real world should be behaving.

I don't think it's a good strategy to submit a response to the Douglass et al. paper to the International Journal of Climatology (IJC). As Phil pointed out, IJC has a large backlog, so it might take some time to get a response published. Furthermore, Douglass et al. probably would be given the final word.

My suggestion is to submit (to Science) a short "update" of our 2005 paper. This update would only be submitted AFTER publication of the four new radiosonde-based temperature datasets mentioned by Peter. The update would involve:

2) Use of the latest versions of the UAH and RSS TLT data, and the latest versions of the T2 data from UAH, RSS, UMD (Vinnikov and Grody), and NESDIS (Zou et al.).

3) Use of the T2 data in 2) above AND the UAH and RSS T4 data to calculate tropical "TFu" temperatures, with all possible combinations of T4 and T2 datasets (e.g., RSS T4 and UMD T2, UAH T4 and UMD T2, etc.)

4) Calculating synthetic MSU temperatures from all model 20c3m runs currently available in the IPCC AR4 database. Calculation of synthetic MSU temperatures would rely on a method suggested by Carl (using weighting functions that depend on both the surface type [land, ocean] and the surface pressure at each grid-point) rather than on the static global-mean weighting function that we used previously. This is probably several months of work - but at least it will keep me off the streets and out of trouble.

5) Formal determination of statistical significance of model-versus-observed trend differences.

7) As and both Peter and Melissa suggested, brief examination of sensitivity of estimated trends to the selected analysis period (e.g., use of 1979 to 1999; use of 1979 to 2001 or 2003 [for the small number of model 20c3m runs ending after 1999]; use of data for the post-NOAA9 period).

This will be a fair bit of effort, but I think it's worth it. Douglass et al. will try to make maximum political hay out of their IJC paper - which has already been sent to Andy Revkin at the New York Times. You can bet they've sent it elsewhere, too. I'm pretty sure that our colleague JC will portray Douglass et al. as definitive "proof" that all climate models are fundamentally flawed, UAH data are in amazing agreement with sonde-based estimates of tropospheric temperature change, global warming is not a serious problem, etc.

One of the most disturbing aspects of Douglass et al. is its abrupt dismissal of the finding (by Sherwood et al. and Randel and Wu) of a residual tropospheric cooling bias in the sonde data. Douglass et al. base this dismissal on the Christy et al. (2007) JGR paper, and on Christy's finding of biases in the night-time sonde data that magically offset the biases in the day-time data. Does that sound familiar? When did we last hear about new biases magically offsetting the effect of recently-discovered biases? As Yogi Berra would say, this is deja vu all over again....

I hope that one of the papers on the new sonde-based datasets directly addresses the subject of 'error compensation' in the day-time and night-time sonde data. This would be important to do.

It's unfortunate that Douglass et al. will probably be published well before the appearance of the papers on the new radiosonde datasets, and before an updated comparison of modeled-and observed tropospheric temperature trends.

I'd be grateful if you could let me know whether you are in agreement with the response strategy I've outlined above, and would like to be involved with an update of our 2005 Science paper.

Ben Peter Thorne wrote: > All, > > There are several additional reasons why we may not expect perfect > agreement between models and obs that are outlined in the attached > paper. > > It speaks in part to the trend uncertainty that Carl alluded to - taking > differences between linear trend estimates is hard when the underlying > series is noisy and perhaps non-linear. Work that John and Dian have > done also shows this. Taking the ratio between two such estimates is > always going to produce noisy results over relatively short trend > periods when the signal is small relative to the natural variability. > > Also, 1979 as a start date may bias those estimates towards a "bias", I > believe (this is unproven) because of endpoint effects due to natural > variability that tend to damp the ratio of Trop/Surf trends (ENSO > phasing and El Chichon) for any trend period with this start date. Given > the N-9 uncertainty a reasonable case could be made for an evaluation of > the obs that started only after N-9 and this may yield a very different > picture. > > It also shows that the model result really is constrained to perturbed > physics, at least for HadCM3. Unsurprising as convective adjustment is > at the heart of most models. Certainly ours anyway. This result was > cherry-picked and the rest of the paper discarded by Douglass et al. > > In addition to this, the state of play on the radiosondes has moved on > substantially with RAOBCORE 1.4 (accepted I believe, Leo Haimberger > should be in this - I'm adding him) which shows warming intermediate > between UAH and RSS and I know of three additional efforts on > radiosondes all of which strongly imply that the raobs datasets used in > this paper are substantially under-estimating the warming rate (Steve > Sherwood x2 and our automated system). So, there's going to be a whole > suite of papers hopefully coming out within the next year or so that > imply we at least cannot rule out from the radiosonde data warming > consistent even with the absurd "mean of the model runs" criteria that > is used in this paper. > > For info, our latest results imply a true raobs trend for 2LT in the > tropics somewhere >0.08K/decade (we cannot place a defensible upper > limit) ruling out most of the datasets used in the Douglass paper and > ruling in possibility of consistency with models. > > Douglass et al also omit the newer MSU studies from the NESDIS group > which in the absence of a reasonable criteria (a criteria I think we are > some way away from still) to weed out bad obs datasets should be > considered. Placing all obs datasets and the likely new raobs datasets > would pretty much destroy this paper's main point. There's been a fair > bit of cherry picking on the obs side which needs correcting here. > > Peter > > On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 15:40 -0800, carl mears wrote: >> Karl -- thanks for clarifying what I was trying to say >> >> Some further comments..... >> >> At 02:53 PM 12/4/2007, Karl Taylor wrote: >>> Dear all, >>> 2) unforced variability hasn't dominated the observations. >> But on this short time scale, we strongly suspect that it has >> dominated. For example, the >> 2 sigma error bars from table 3.4, CCSP for satellite TLT are 0.18 (UAH) or >> 0.19 (RSS), larger >> than either group's trends (0.05, 0.15) for 1979-2004. These were >> calculated using a "goodness >> of linear fit" criterion, corrected for autocorrelation. This is a >> probably a reasonable >> estimate of the contribution of unforced variability to trend uncertainty. >> >> >> >>> Douglass et al. have *not* shown that every individual model is in fact >>> inconsistent with the observations. If the spread of individual model >>> results is large enough and at least 1 model overlaps the observations, >>> then one cannot claim that all models are wrong, just that the mean is biased. >> >> Given the magnitude of the unforced variability, I would say "the mean >> *may* be biased." You can't prove this >> with only one universe, as Tom alluded. All we can say is that the >> observed trend cannot be proven to >> be inconsistent with the model results, since it is inside their range. >> >> It we interesting to see if we can say anything more, when we start culling >> out the less realistic models, >> as Ben has suggested. >> >> -Carl >> >> >> >>

-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: (925) 422-2486 FAX: (925) 422-7675 email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Kevin Trenberth" To: "Andrew Revkin" Subject: Re: clearing up climate trends sans ENSO and perhaps PDO? Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 20:33:44 -0600 (MDT) Reply-to: trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Cc: gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, davet@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, david.parker@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, wpatzert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, ackerman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, wallace@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tbarnett-ul@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, sarachik@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, peter.thorne@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, john.kennedy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, cwunsch@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

(0) correlation between ENSO and PDO: for the smoothed IPCC decadal filter: 0.490662 (0) correlation between ENSO and PDO: for the annual means: 0.527169 (0) regression coef for PDO with global T : 0.0473447 (0) regression coef for N34 with global T : 0.0664886

;---------------------------------------------- ; PDO: http://www.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/ ; http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest ;---------------------------------------------- ; N34: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/Nino_3_3.4_indices.html ; http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/TNI_N34/index.html#Sec5 ; --------------------------------- ; CRU: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ ; Hadcrut: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt ;=================================================================== ; Files were manually stripped for 1900 to 2007 ;============================================/=======================

These numbers mean that for a one standard deviation in the ENSO index there is 0.066C change in global T, or from PDO: 0.047C, but that much of the latter comes from the ENSO index. Very roughly, since the correlation is 0.5 between PDO and ENSO, half of the 0.066 or 0.033C of the 0.047 is from ENSO. Strictly one should do this properly using screening regression.

> dear all, > re-sending because of a glitch. > > finally got round to posting on an earlier inquiry I made to some of > you about whether there was a 'clean' graph of multi-decades > temperature trends with ENSO wiggles removed -- thanks to gavin (and > david thompson) posting on realclimate. > here's Dot Earth piece with link to Realclimate etc.. > http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/climate-trends-with-some-noise-removed/?ex=1216094400&en=a57177d93165cba3&ei=5070 > > next step is PDO. has anyone characterized how much impact (if any) > PDO has on hemispheric or global temp trends, and if so is there a > graph showing what happens when that's accounted for? > > as you are doubtless aware, this is another bone of contention with a > lot of the anti-greenhouse-limits folks and some scientists (the post > 1970s change is a PDO thing, etc etc). hoping to show a bit of how > that works. > > thanks for any insights. > and i encourage you to comment and provide links etc with the current > post to add context etc. > > -- > Andrew C. Revkin > The New York Times / Science > 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 > Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 > Fax: 509-357-0965 > www.nytimes.com/revkin

From: Phil Jones To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Wigley Subject: Re: Schles suggestion Date: Wed Dec 3 13:57:09 2008 Cc: mann , Gavin Schmidt , Karl Taylor , peter gleckler

Ben, When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions - one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school - the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I've got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian - who deals with appeals. The VC is also aware of what is going on - at least for one of the requests, but probably doesn't know the number we're dealing with. We are in double figures.

One issue is that these requests aren't that widely known within the School. So I don't know who else at UEA may be getting them. CRU is moving up the ladder of requests at UEA though - we're way behind computing though. We're away of requests going to others in the UK - MOHC, Reading, DEFRA and Imperial College. So spelling out all the detail to the LLNL management should be the first thing you do. I hope that Dave is being supportive at PCMDI. The inadvertent email I sent last month has led to a Data Protection Act request sent by a certain Canadian, saying that the email maligned his scientific credibility with his peers! If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn't yet) I am supposed to go through my emails and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little - if anything at all. This legislation is different from the FOI - it is supposed to be used to find put why you might have a poor credit rating ! In response to FOI and EIR requests, we've put up some data - mainly paleo data. Each request generally leads to more - to explain what we've put up. Every time, so far, that hasn't led to anything being added - instead just statements saying read what is in the papers and what is on the web site! Tim Osborn sent one such response (via the FOI person) earlier this week. We've never sent programs, any codes and manuals. In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise results will be out in 2 weeks time. These are expensive to produce and take too much time, so from next year we'll be moving onto a metric based system. The metrics will be # and amounts of grants, papers and citations etc. I did flippantly suggest that the # of FOI requests you get should be another. When you look at CA, they only look papers from a handful of people. They will start on another coming out in The Holocene early next year. Gavin and Mike are on this with loads of others. I've told both exactly what will appear on CA once they get access to it! Cheers Phil At 01:17 03/12/2008, Ben Santer wrote:

Dear Tom, I think that the idea of a Commentary in Science or Nature is a good one. Steve Sherwood made a similar suggestion. I'd be perfectly happy NOT to be involved in such a Commentary. My involvement would look too self-serving. One of the problems is that I'm caught in a real Catch-22 situation. At present, I'm damned and publicly vilified because I refused to provide McIntyre with the data he requested. But had I acceded to McIntyre's initial request for climate model data, I'm convinced (based on the past experiences of Mike Mann, Phil, and Gavin) that I would have spent years of my scientific career dealing with demands for further explanations, additional data, Fortran code, etc. (Phil has been complying with FOIA requests from McIntyre and his cronies for over two years). And if I ever denied a single request for further information, McIntyre would have rubbed his hands gleefully and written: "You see - he's guilty as charged!" on his website. You and I have spent over a decade of our scientific careers on the MSU issue, Tom. During much of that time, we've had to do science in "reactive mode", responding to the latest outrageous claims and inept science by John Christy, David Douglass, or S. Fred Singer. For the remainder of my scientific career, I'd like to dictate my own research agenda. I don't want that agenda driven by the constant need to respond to Christy, Douglass, and Singer. And I certainly don't want to spend years of my life interacting with the likes of Steven McIntyre. I hope LLNL management will provide me with their full support. If they do not, I'm fully prepared to seek employment elsewhere. With best regards, Ben Tom Wigley wrote:

Ben, Re the idea Michael sent around (to Revkin et al.) this is something that Nature or Science might like as a Commentary. It might even be possible to include some indirect reference to the Mc audit issue. The notes I sent could be a starting point. One problem is that you could not be first author as this would look like garnering publicity for your own work (as the 2 key papers are both Santer et al.) Even having me as the first author may not work. An ideal person would be Tom Karl, who sent me a response saying "nice summary". What do you think? Tom.

-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: (925) 422-3840 FAX: (925) 422-7675 email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Phil Jones To: wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Re: Schles suggestion Date: Thu Dec 4 12:40:29 2008

Tom, Obviously don't pass on! These proofs have gone back with about 60 changes to be made. Should be out first issue of 2009. The bet is that CA will say they found that the IPCC Figure from 1990 was a Lamb diagram 6 months ago. They did, but they didn't get the right source, and our paper was submitted in early 2008. CA will also comment on the section on pp21-31. The summary of where we are with the individual proxies is useful for most of them - but we didn't get anyone working with speleothems involved. I remain unconvinced they get the resolution claimed. Yet to see a speleothem paper which doesn't compare their (individual site) reconstruction with either the MBH series or a solar proxy. I hope Ben gets the support from PCMDI and LLNL. Cheers Phil Cheers Phil At 22:33 03/12/2008, you wrote:

Phil, Thanks for all the information on the GISS etc. data. Re below -- can you send me a preprint of the Holocene paper. Tom. +++++++++++++++ > > Ben, > When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide > by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions - one at a > screen, to convince them otherwise > showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the > types of people we were > dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the > Environmental Sciences school > - the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I've > got to know the FOI > person quite well and the Chief Librarian - who deals with appeals. > The VC is also > aware of what is going on - at least for one of the requests, but > probably doesn't know > the number we're dealing with. We are in double figures. > > One issue is that these requests aren't that widely known within > the School. So > I don't know who else at UEA may be getting them. CRU is moving up > the ladder of > requests at UEA though - we're way behind computing though. We're away > of > requests going to others in the UK - MOHC, Reading, DEFRA and > Imperial College. > > So spelling out all the detail to the LLNL management should be > the first thing > you do. I hope that Dave is being supportive at PCMDI. > > The inadvertent email I sent last month has led to a Data > Protection Act request sent by > a certain Canadian, saying that the email maligned his scientific > credibility with his peers! > If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn't yet) I am supposed to go > through my emails > and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months ago > I deleted loads of > emails, so have very little - if anything at all. This legislation > is different from the FOI - > it is supposed to be used to find put why you might have a poor > credit rating ! > > In response to FOI and EIR requests, we've put up some data - > mainly paleo data. > Each request generally leads to more - to explain what we've put > up. Every time, so > far, that hasn't led to anything being added - instead just > statements saying read > what is in the papers and what is on the web site! Tim Osborn sent one > such > response (via the FOI person) earlier this week. We've never sent > programs, any codes > and manuals. > > In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise results will be out > in 2 weeks time. > These are expensive to produce and take too much time, so from next > year we'll > be moving onto a metric based system. The metrics will be # and > amounts of grants, > papers and citations etc. I did flippantly suggest that the # of > FOI requests you get > should be another. > > When you look at CA, they only look papers from a handful of > people. They will start on another coming out in The Holocene early > next year. Gavin > and Mike are on this with loads of others. I've told both exactly > what will appear on > CA once they get access to it! > > Cheers > Phil > > > At 01:17 03/12/2008, Ben Santer wrote: >>Dear Tom, >> >>I think that the idea of a Commentary in Science or Nature is a good >>one. Steve Sherwood made a similar suggestion. I'd be perfectly >>happy NOT to be involved in such a Commentary. My involvement would >>look too self-serving. >> >>One of the problems is that I'm caught in a real Catch-22 situation. >>At present, I'm damned and publicly vilified because I refused to >>provide McIntyre with the data he requested. But had I acceded to >>McIntyre's initial request for climate model data, I'm convinced >>(based on the past experiences of Mike Mann, Phil, and Gavin) that I >>would have spent years of my scientific career dealing with demands >>for further explanations, additional data, Fortran code, etc. (Phil >>has been complying with FOIA requests from McIntyre and his cronies >>for over two years). And if I ever denied a single request for >>further information, McIntyre would have rubbed his hands gleefully >>and written: "You see - he's guilty as charged!" on his website. >> >>You and I have spent over a decade of our scientific careers on the >>MSU issue, Tom. During much of that time, we've had to do science in >>"reactive mode", responding to the latest outrageous claims and >>inept science by John Christy, David Douglass, or S. Fred Singer. >>For the remainder of my scientific career, I'd like to dictate my >>own research agenda. I don't want that agenda driven by the constant >>need to respond to Christy, Douglass, and Singer. And I certainly >>don't want to spend years of my life interacting with the likes of >>Steven McIntyre. >> >>I hope LLNL management will provide me with their full support. If >>they do not, I'm fully prepared to seek employment elsewhere. >> >>With best regards, >> >>Ben >> >>Tom Wigley wrote: >>>Ben, >>>Re the idea Michael sent around (to Revkin et al.) >>>this is something that Nature or Science might like >>>as a Commentary. It might even be possible to include >>>some indirect reference to the Mc audit issue. The >>>notes I sent could be a starting point. One problem >>>is that you could not be first author as this would >>>look like garnering publicity for your own work (as >>>the 2 key papers are both Santer et al.) Even having >>>me as the first author may not work. An ideal person >>>would be Tom Karl, who sent me a response saying "nice >>>summary". >>>What do you think? >>>Tom. >> >> >>-- >>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>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: (925) 422-3840 >>FAX: (925) 422-7675 >>email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx >>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Prof. Phil Jones > Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 > School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 > University of East Anglia > Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx > NR4 7TJ > UK > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >

From: Michael Mann To: Grant Foster Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:28:31 -0400 Cc: , , "J. Salinger" , James Annan , , Gavin Schmidt ,

on a related note, a few folks have expressed concern that the galley-formatting of the article w/out any label such as "submitted to JGR" is a bit misleading. some people think the paper has already gone to press!

we should add a clear label such as "sub judice" or "submitted" to any posted and/or circulating version of this,

Greetings, I thought I'd let you all know that Steve Gahn has been assigned as editor for the submission. Sincerely, Grant ______________________________________________________________________________________

-- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [2]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [3]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: [4]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Visible links 1. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=PID23384::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:NF_BR_sync:082009 2. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 3. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html 4. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

From: Michael Mann To: Andrew Revkin Subject: Re: mcintyre's latest.... Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:11:03 -0400

p.s. Tim Osborn ([1]t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx) is probably the best person to contact for further details, in Keith's absence,

Hi Andy, I'm fairly certain Keith is out of contact right now recovering from an operation, and is not in a position to respond to these attacks. However, the preliminary information I have from others familiar with these data is that the attacks are bogus. It is unclear that this particular series was used in any of our reconstructions (some of the underlying chronologies may be the same, but I'm fairly certain the versions of these data we have used are based on a different composite and standardization method), let alone any of the dozen other reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature shown in the most recent IPCC report, which come to the conclusion that recent warming is anomalous in a long-term context. So, even if there were a problem w/ these data, it wouldn't matter as far as the key conclusions regarding past warmth are concerned. But I don't think there is any problem with these data, rather it appears that McIntyre has greatly distorted the actual information content of these data. It will take folks a few days to get to the bottom of this, in Keith's absence. if McIntyre had a legitimate point, he would submit a comment to the journal in question. of course, the last time he tried that (w/ our '98 article in Nature), his comment was rejected. For all of the noise and bluster about the Steig et al Antarctic warming, its now nearing a year and nothing has been submitted. So more likely he won't submit for peer-reviewed scrutiny, or if it does get his criticism "published" it will be in the discredited contrarian home journal "Energy and Environment". I'm sure you are aware that McIntyre and his ilk realize they no longer need to get their crap published in legitimate journals. All they have to do is put it up on their blog, and the contrarian noise machine kicks into gear, pretty soon Druge, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk (in this case, The Telegraph were already on it this morning) are parroting the claims. And based on what? some guy w/ no credentials, dubious connections with the energy industry, and who hasn't submitted his claims to the scrutiny of peer review. Fortunately, the prestige press doesn't fall for this sort of stuff, right? mike I'm sure you're aware that you will dozens of bogus, manufactured distortions of the science in the weeks leading up to the vote on cap & trade in the U.S. senate. This is no On Sep 29, 2009, at 4:30 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:

needless to say, seems the 2008 pnas paper showing that without tree rings still solid picture of unusual recent warmth, but McIntyre is getting wide play for his statements about Yamal data-set selectivity. Has he communicated directly to you on this and/or is there any indication he's seeking journal publication for his deconstruct? -- Andrew C. Revkin The New York Times / Environment 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 Fax: 509-357-0965 [2]http://www.nytimes.com/revkin

-- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [3]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [4]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: [5]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

-- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [6]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [7]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: [8]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Hidden links: 9. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm 10. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

From: Michael Mann To: Andrew Revkin Subject: Re: mcintyre's latest.... Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:27:25 -0400 Cc: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Yep, what was written below is all me, but it was purely on background, please don't quote anything I said or attribute to me w/out checking specifically--thanks.

Re, your point at the end--you've taken the words out of my mouth. Skepticism is essential for the functioning of science. It yields an erratic path towards eventual truth. But legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process. A necessary though not in general sufficient condition for taking a scientific criticism seriously is that it has passed through the legitimate scientific peer review process. those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.

thanks heaps. tom crowley has sent me a direct challenge to mcintyre to start contributing to the reviewed lit or shut up. i'm going to post that soon. just want to be sure that what is spliced below is from YOU ... a little unclear . ? I'm copying this to Tim, in hopes that he can shed light on the specific data assertions made over at climateaudit.org..... I'm going to blog on this as it relates to the value of the peer review process and not on the merits of the mcintyre et al attacks. peer review, for all its imperfections, is where the herky-jerky process of knowledge building happens, would you agree?

p.s. Tim Osborn ([1]t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx) is probably the best person to contact for further details, in Keith's absence,

I'm fairly certain Keith is out of contact right now recovering from an operation, and is not in a position to respond to these attacks. However, the preliminary information I have from others familiar with these data is that the attacks are bogus.

It is unclear that this particular series was used in any of our reconstructions (some of the underlying chronologies may be the same, but I'm fairly certain the versions of these data we have used are based on a different composite and standardization method), let alone any of the dozen other reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature shown in the most recent IPCC report, which come to the conclusion that recent warming is anomalous in a long-term context.

So, even if there were a problem w/ these data, it wouldn't matter as far as the key conclusions regarding past warmth are concerned. But I don't think there is any problem with these data, rather it appears that McIntyre has greatly distorted the actual information content of these data. It will take folks a few days to get to the bottom of this, in Keith's absence.

if McIntyre had a legitimate point, he would submit a comment to the journal in question. of course, the last time he tried that (w/ our '98 article in Nature), his comment was rejected. For all of the noise and bluster about the Steig et al Antarctic warming, its now nearing a year and nothing has been submitted. So more likely he won't submit for peer-reviewed scrutiny, or if it does get his criticism "published" it will be in the discredited contrarian home journal "Energy and Environment". I'm sure you are aware that McIntyre and his ilk realize they no longer need to get their crap published in legitimate journals. All they have to do is put it up on their blog, and the contrarian noise machine kicks into gear, pretty soon Druge, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk (in this case, The Telegraph were already on it this morning) are parroting the claims. And based on what? some guy w/ no credentials, dubious connections with the energy industry, and who hasn't submitted his claims to the scrutiny of peer review.

I'm sure you're aware that you will dozens of bogus, manufactured distortions of the science in the weeks leading up to the vote on cap & trade in the U.S. senate. This is no

Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075

503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [3]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [4]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html

Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [6]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [7]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html

Andrew C. Revkin The New York Times / Environment 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 Fax: 509-357-0965 [9]http://www.nytimes.com/revkin

-- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [10]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [11]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: [12]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Visible links 1. mailto:t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 2. http://www.nytimes.com/revkin 3. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 4. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html 5. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html 6. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 7. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html 8. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html 9. http://www.nytimes.com/revkin 10. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx 11. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html 12. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

Hidden links: 13. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm 14. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm 15. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

From: Andy Revkin <anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: mann's thoughts
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:44:44 -0400

that is a useful way to look at it.

again, takeaway msg is that mann method can only work if past variability
same as variability during period used to calibrate your method.

so it could be correct, but could be very wrong as well.
by the way, von storch doesn't concur with osborn/briffa on the idea that
higher past variability would mean there'd likley be high future
variability as well (bigger response to ghg forcing).
he simply says it's time to toss hockeystick and start again, doesn't take
it further than that.

is that right?

At 09:40 AM 9/28/2004, you wrote:
>Dear Andy,
>
>our schematic figure is attached.
>
>Tim
>
>
>
>Dr Timothy J Osborn
>Climatic Research Unit
>School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
>Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
>
>e-mail: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>phone: +44 1603 592089
>fax: +44 1603 507784
>web: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
>sunclock: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm

Andrew C. Revkin, Environment Reporter, The New York Times
229 West 43d St. NY, NY 10036
Tel: 212-556-7326, Fax: 509-357-0965 (via www.efax.com, received as email)

!-- Copyright (c)2009 Site Meter --

From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: chris.folland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading
Date: Tue Feb 8 16:44:17 2005

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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 16:04:57 -0500
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tom crowley <tom@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, tom crowley <tom@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
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From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
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sorry, forgot to attach the paper...
mike

Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:54:15 -0500
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Crowley, Tom Crowley,
mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading

Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:52:53 -0500
To: Andy Revkin <anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading
Hi Andy,
The McIntyre and McKitrick paper is pure scientific fraud. I think you'll find this
reinforced by just about any legitimate scientist in our field you discuss this with.
Please see the RealClimate response:
[1]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=111
and also:
[2]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114
The Moberg et al paper is at least real science. But there are some real problems with
it (you'll want to followup w/ people like Phil Jones for a 2nd opinion).
While the paper actually reinforces the main conclusion of previous studies (it also
finds the late 20th century to be the warmest period of the past two millennia), it
challenges various reconstructions
using tree-ring information (which includes us, but several others such as Jones et al,
Crowley, etc). I'm pretty sure, by the way, that a very similar version of the paper was
rejected previously by Science. A number of us are therefore very surprised that Nature
is publishing it, given a number of serious problems:
Their method for combining frequencies is problematic and untested:
A. they only use a handful of records, so there is a potentially large sampling bias.
B. worse, they use different records for high-frequencies and low-frequencies, so the
bias isn't even the same--the reconstruction is apples and oranges.
C. The wavelet method is problematic. We have found in our own work that you cannot
simply combine the content in different at like frequencies, because different proxies
have different signal vs. noise characteristics at different frequencies--for some
records, there century-scale variability is likely to be pure noise. They end up
therfore weighting noise as much as signal. For some of the records used, there are real
age model problems. The timescale isn't known to better than +/- a couple hundred years
in several cases. So when they average these records together, the century-scale
variability is likely to be nonsense.
D. They didn't do statistical verification. This is absolutely essential for such
reconstructions (see e.g. the recent Cook et al and Luterbacher et al papers in
Science). They should have validated their reconstruction against long-instrumental
records, as we and many others have. Without having done so, there is no reason to
believe the reconstruction has any reliability. This is a major problem w/ the paper. It
is complicated by the fact that they don't produce a pattern, but just a hemispheric
mean--that makes it difficult to do a long-term verification. But they don't attempt any
sort of verification at all! There are some decades known to be warm from the available
instrumental records (1730s, some in the 16th century) which the Moberg reconstruction
completely misses--the reconstruction gives the impression that all years are cold
between 1500 and 1750. The reconstruction would almost certainly fail cross-validation
against long instrumental records. If so, it is an unreliable estimate of past changes.
We're surprised the Nature Reviewers didn't catch this.
E. They also didn't validate their method against a model (where I believe it would
likely fail). We have done so w/ our own "hybrid frequency-domain" method that combines
information separately at low and high-frequencies, but taking into account the problem
mentioned above. This is described in:
Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K.,
Jones, P.D., [3]Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions:
Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target Domain, Journal
of Climate, in press (2005).
In work that is provisionally accepted in "Journal of Climate" (draft attached), we show
that our method gives the correct history using noisy "pseudoproxy" records derived from
a climate model simulation with large past changes in radiative forcing. Moberg et al
have not tested their method in such a manner.
F. They argue selectively for favorable comparison w/ other work:
(1) Esper et al: when authors rescaled the reconstruction using the full instrumental
record (Cook et al, 2004), they found it to be far more similar to Mann et al, Crowley
and Lowery, Jones et al, and the roughly dozen or so other empirical and model estimates
consistent w/ it. Several studies, moreover [see e.g.: Shindell, D.T., Schmidt, G.A.,
Mann, M.E., Faluvegi, G., [4]Dynamic winter climate response to large tropical volcanic
eruptions since 1600, Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, D05104, doi:
10.1029/2003JD004151, 2004.] show that extratropical, land-only summer temperatures,
which Esper et al emphasises, are likely to biased towards greater variability--so its
an apples and oranges comparison anyway.
(2) von Storch et al: There are some well known problems here: (a) their forcing is way
too large (Foukal at al in Science a couple months back indicates maybe 5 times too
large), DKMI uses same model, more conventional forcings, and get half the amplitude and
another paper submitted recently by the Belgium modeling group suggests that some severe
spin-up/initialization problems give the large century-scale swings in the model--these
are not reproducible.
(3) Boreholes: They argue that Boreholes are "physical measurements" but many papers in
the published literature have detailed the various biases in using continental ground
surface temperature to estimate past surface air temperature changes--changing snow
cover gives rise to a potentially huge bias (see e.g. : Mann, M.E., Schmidt, G.A.,
[5]Ground vs. Surface Air Temperature Trends: Implications for Borehole Surface
Temperature Reconstructions,Geophysical Research Letters, 30 (12), 1607, doi:
10.1029/2003GL017170, 2003).
Methods that try to correct for this give smaller amplitude changes from borehole
temperatures:
Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Keimig, F.T., [6]Optimal
Surface Temperature Reconstructions using Terrestrial Borehole Data, Journal of
Geophysical Research, 108 (D7), 4203, doi: 10.1029/2002JD002532, 2003]
[[7]Correction(Rutherford and Mann, 2004)]
Most reconstructions and model estimates still *sandwich" the Mann et al reconstruction.
See e.g. figure 5 in: Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., [8]Climate Over Past Millennia, Reviews
of Geophysics, 42, RG2002, doi: 10.1029/2003RG000143, 2004.
Ironically, MM say our 15th century is too cold, while Moberg et al say its too warm.
Hmmm....
To recap, I hope you don't mention MM at all. It really doesn't deserve any additional
publicity. Moberg et al is more deserving of discussion, but, as outlined above, there
are some real problems w/ it. I have reason to believe that Nature's own commentary by
Schiermeier will actually be somewhat critical of it.
I'm travelling and largely unavailable until monday. If you need to talk, you can
possibly reach me at 434-227-6969 over the weekend.
I hope this is of some help. Literally got to run now...
mike
At 02:14 PM 2/4/2005, Andy Revkin wrote:

Hi all,
There is a fascinating paper coming in Nature next week (Moberg of Stockholm Univ., et
al) that uses mix of sediment and tree ring data to get a new view of last 2,000 years.
Very warped hockeystick shaft (centuries-scale variability very large) but still
pronounced 'unusual' 1990's blade.
i'd like your reaction/thoughts for story i'll write for next thursday's Times.
also, is there anything about the GRL paper forthcoming from Mc & Mc that warrants a
response?
I can send you the Nature paper as pdf if you agree not to redistribute it (you know the
embargo rules).
that ok?
thanks for getting in touch!
andy

______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137
[9]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: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137
[10]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: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137
[11]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

--
Professor Keith Briffa,
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.

Phone: +44-1603-593909
Fax: +44-1603-507784
[12]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

References

1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=111
2. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114
3. http://www.realclimate.org/RuthetalJClim2004.pdf
4. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Shindelletal-jgr04.pdf
5. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/gissgst03.pdf
6. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/borehole-jgr03.pdf
7. http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/shared/articles/JGRBoreholeCorrection04.pdf
8. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/JonesMannROG04.pdf
9. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
10. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
11. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
12. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

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