The below are part of a series of alleged emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, released on 20 November 2009.
Original Filename: 1249313699.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:34:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi Grant,
I have been tied up with other things. In looking at the paper some questions.
1) In Fig 1, why is the scale zero to 2? Normally a filter would be scaled to have a
response function zero to 1.
2) In Fig 2 and 3 what are the units of "power"? It is not in the caption. Are these
normalized spectra so that the area under the curve is unity? My guess is that this is the
case and hence the amplification at ENSO bands. But it is important to say this and
perhaps point out. Maybe the captions are sufficient? Add something like: The spectra
have been normalized to have unit variance, which relatively inflates the values in the 0.2
to 0.5 frequency band. In a couple of places in text add "normalized" before "power
spectrum" such as 2 lines above Fig 3 in the JGR set version.
3) A minor point: in the x= sin(2*pi*vt) I would be inclined to add an amplitude which
would then be included also in eq (1) on RHS emphasizing how the amplitude is changed.
[My own preference would be to call the amplitude A and the A you have R (for response
function)]. However it is fine as is.
Thanks
Kevin
Grant Foster wrote:
Gentlemen,
Well, I got some free time and it didn't take as long as I expected. Attached are:
comment.zip Comment in preprint form
draft.zip Comment in draft form (for submission)
freeform.zip Comment NOT as preprint or draft, with larger font and double-wide graphs
I suggest we don't circulate it until folks have had one further day to check. And
double check and triple-check. If we don't hear an objection by tomorrow morning, I
suggest we submit it to JGR and feel free to circulate it.
So -- this is your last chance to suggest changes before submission, or to suggest
restraint in circulation.
Sincerely,
Grant
___________________________________________________________________________________
Windows Live(TM): Keep your life in sync. [1]Check it out.
--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [2]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [3]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305
References
1. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=PID23384::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:NF_BR_sync:082009
2. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Original Filename: 1249326482.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Jim Salinger <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:08:02 +1200
Cc: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear James
From the Land of the Long White Cloud to the Land of the Rising Sun....
Should we not also inquire about their time line for publishing the
comment, and on the basis that is so serious, and the implications of
their flawed findings ask it to be expedited.
Perhaps
We also note that the paper is now being used as the basis of campaigns
against climate change policy and, should you decide to go ahead and
publish our comment, expedite its acceptance.
Best
Auckland James
James Annan wrote:
> Grant Foster wrote:
>> James, since you can cover the page charges I suggest you handle the
>> actual submission (when the time comes). Would you be willing to
>> write the cover letter? Any other volunteers?
>
> Sure, I propose something like the below. I don't think there is
> anything to be gained by being overly combative wrt JGR.
>
> I look forward to the next final version of the paper :-)
>
>
> Covering Letter:
>
>
> Dear Sir/Madam,
>
> Please consider the attached manuscript for publication in the Journal
> of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres). We consider that the errors in
> the analysis of McLean et al are so serious that the publication of a
> Comment to correct the public record is amply justified. In view of the
> high profile of the issue, we would prefer if one of the senior editors
> could take charge of the editorial process.
>
> Yours sincerely..
>
>
</x-flowed>
Original Filename: 1249503274.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Wed Aug 5 16:14:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi all,
Agree with Kevin that Tom Karl has too much to do. Tom Wigley is semi
retired and like Mike Wallace may not be responsive to requests from JGR.
We have Ben Santer in common ! Dave Thompson is a good suggestion.
I'd go for one of Tom Peterson or Dave Easterling.
To get a spread, I'd go with 3 US, One Australian and one in Europe.
So Neville Nicholls and David Parker.
All of them know the sorts of things to say - about our comment and
the awful original, without any prompting.
Cheers
Phil
At 15:50 05/08/2009, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
Hi all
I went to JGR site to look for index codes, and I see that the offending article has
been downloaded 128 times in past week (second). All the mnore reason to get on with
it.
see below
Kevin
Grant Foster wrote:
Gentlemen,
I've completed most of the submission to JGR, but there are three required entries I
hope you can help me with.
1) Keyword
Please provide 1 unique keyword
global temperatures, statistical methods, El Nino-Southern Oscillation, global warming
2) Index Terms
Please provide 3 unique index terms
1xxx xxxx xxxxGLOBAL CHANGE
1xxx xxxx xxxxClimate variability
3xxx xxxx xxxxClimatology
1xxx xxxx xxxxInstruments and techniques
3) Suggested Reviewers to Include
Please list the names of 5 experts who are knowledgeable in your area and could give
an unbiased review of your work. Please do not list colleagues who are close associates,
collaborators, or family members. (this requires name, email, and institution).
Tom Wigley [1]wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx NCAR
Ben Santer [2]<santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> Lawrence Livermore
Mike Wallace [3]<wallace@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> U Washington [May not be most
responsive]
Dave Thompson [4]<davet@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> Col State Univ
Dave Easterling [5]<David.Easterling@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> NCDC
Sincerely,
Grant
___________________________________________________________________________________
Windows Live: Keep your life in sync. [6]Check it out.
--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [7]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [8]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. mailto:wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. mailto:santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. mailto:wallace@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:davet@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. mailto:David.Easterling@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
6. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=PID23384::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:NF_BR_sync:082009
7. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
8. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Original Filename: 1249652050.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Thomas R. Karl" <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]]
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:34:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Virginia Burkett <virginia_burkett@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Wehner <mfwehner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter gleckler <gleckler1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Thorne, Peter" <peter.thorne@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Susan Solomon <ssolomon@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "'Philip D. Jones'" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, carl mears <mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steven Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Dear Tom,
I'm inclined to agree with Mike. Some people are accessible to rational
scientific debate. They are good Bayesians - when confronted with new
scientific information, they are capable of modifying previously-held
views. John Christy is not accessible to rational scientific debate. New
evidence does not cause him to change his views. He simply claims that
the new evidence is wrong. From John's perspective, any datasets in
disagreement with UAH-based estimates of tropospheric temperature change
constitute "bad data".
John is incapable of recognizing and admitting that Douglass et al. used
a flawed statistical test to reach incorrect conclusions. He continues
to misrepresent the analyses we performed in our response to Douglass et
al. I don't see what useful purpose can be served by trying to engage
him in reasonable scientific debate.
At the Hawaii IPCC meeting in March, John stood up in front of an
audience of IPCC Working Group I Lead Authors and attempted to portray
himself as a victim of scientific discrimination. He claimed that his
"alternative" views on the nature and causes of climate change were
being ignored by the mainstream scientific community. This claim is
bogus. The "mainstream" scientific community has not ignored the
"alternative" views of folks like John Christy. The sad reality is that
we've wasted an inordinate amount of time responding to the flawed
science and incorrect claims of John and his colleagues.
I'm hopeful that I won't have to waste much more time on the "great
satellite debate". In my personal opinion, we're already well past the
point of diminishing returns on this debate. The point of diminishing
returns was reached three years ago, when you overcame great obstacles
to lead a fractious bunch of scientists to the successful completion of
the first CCSP Report.
With best regards,
Ben
Thomas R. Karl wrote:
> Ben,
>
> Just got to this. I wonder if it would be useful to directly respond to
> John, or would this be a time sink? Maybe a cleaned up version of this
> is a single reponse? Just thinking out loud.
>
> Thanks Ben
>
> P.S. I have no idea what he is talking about regarding ERST.
>
>
> Ben Santer said the following on 7/30/2009 9:41 PM:
>> Dear Tom,
>>
>> Thanks for forwarding the message from John Christy. Excuse me for
>> being so blunt, but John's message is just a load of utter garbage.
>>
>> I got a laugh out of John's claim that Santer et al. (2008) was
>> "poorly done". This was kind of ironic coming from a co-author of the
>> Douglass et al. (2007) paper, which used a fundamentally flawed
>> statistical test to compare modeled and observed tropospheric
>> temperature trends. To my knowledge, John has NEVER acknowledged that
>> Douglass et al. used a flawed statistical test to reach incorrect
>> conclusions - despite unequivocal evidence from the "synthetic data"
>> experiments in Santer et al. (2008) that the Douglass et al. "robust
>> consistency" test was simply wrong. Unbelievably, Christy continues to
>> assert that the results of Douglass et al. (2007) "still stand". I can
>> only shake my head in amazement at such intellectual dishonesty. I
>> guess the best form of defense is a "robust" attack.
>>
>> So how does John support his contention that Santer et al. (2008) was
>> "poorly done"? He begins by stating that:
>>
>> "Santer et al. 2008 used ERSST data which I understand has now been
>> changed in a way that discredits the conclusion there".
>>
>> Maybe you or Tom Peterson or Dick Reynolds can enlighten me on this
>> one. How exactly have NOAA ERSST surface data changed? Recall that
>> Santer et al. (2008) actually used two different versions of the ERSST
>> data (version 2 and version 3). We also used HadISST sea-surface
>> temperature data, and combined SSTs and land 2m temperature data from
>> HadCRUT3v. In other words, we used four different observational
>> estimates of surface temperature changes. Our bottom-line conclusion
>> (no significant discrepancy between modeled and observed
>> lower-tropospheric lapse-rate trends) was not sensitive to our choice
>> of observed surface temperature dataset.
>>
>> John next assets that:
>>
>> "Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 (of the radiosonde data) are clearly spurious
>> due to the error in ECMWF as published many places".
>>
>> I'll let Leo Haimberger respond to that one. And if v1.2 of Leo's data
>> is "clearly spurious", why did John Christy agree to be a co-author on
>> the Douglass et al. paper which uses upper-air data from v1.2?
>>
>> Santer et al. (2008) comprehensively examined structural uncertainties
>> in the observed upper-air datasets. They looked at two different
>> satellite and seven different radiosonde-based estimates of
>> tropospheric temperature change. As in the case of the surface
>> temperature data, getting the statistical test right was much more
>> important (in terms of the bottom-line conclusions) than the choice of
>> observational upper-air dataset.
>>
>> Christy's next criticism of our IJoC paper is even more absurd. He
>> states that:
>>
>> "Santer et al. 2008 asked a very different question...than we did. Our
>> question was "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best Data
>> (including RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC
>> model agree with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference.
>>
>> Actually, we asked and answered BOTH of these questions. "Tests with
>> individual model realizations" are described in Section 4.1 of Santer
>> et al. (2008), while Section 4.2 covers "Tests with multi-model
>> ensemble-mean trend". As should be obvious - even to John Christy - we
>> did NOT just compare observations with results from individual models.
>>
>> For both types of test ("individual model" and "multi-model average"),
>> we found that, if one applied appropriate statistical tests (which
>> Douglass et al. failed to do), there was no longer a serious
>> discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical lapse
>> rates or in tropical tropospheric temperatures.
>>
>> Again, I find myself shaking my head in amazement. How can John make
>> such patently false claims about our paper? The kindest interpretation
>> is that he is a complete idiot, and has not even bothered to read
>> Santer et al. (2008) before making erroneous criticisms of it. The
>> less kind interpretation is that he is deliberately lying.
>>
>> A good scientist is willing to acknowledge the errors he or she
>> commits (such as applying an inappropriate statistical test). John
>> Christy is not a good scientist. I'm not a religious man, but I'm sure
>> willing to thank some higher authority that Dr. John Christy is not
>> the "gatekeeper" of what constitutes sound science.
>>
>> I hope you don't mind, Tom, but I'm copying this email to some of the
>> other co-authors of the Santer et al. (2008) IJoC paper. They deserve
>> to know about the kind of disinformation Christy is spreading.
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> Thomas R. Karl wrote:
>>> FYI
>>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject: Re: [Fwd: concerns about the Southeast chapter]
>>> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:54:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> From: John Christy <john.christy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> To: Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> CC: Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>> References: <4A534CF9.9080700@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom:
>>>
>>> I've been on a heavy travel schedule and just now getting to emails
>>> I've delayed. I was in Asheville briefly Thursday for a taping for
>>> the CDMP project at the Biltmore estates (don't know why that was the
>>> backdrop) while traveling between meetings in Chapel Hill, Atlanta
>>> and here.
>>>
>>> We disagree on the use of available climate information regarding the
>>> many things related to climate/climate change as I see by your
>>> responses below - that is not unexpected as climate is an ugly,
>>> ambiguous, and complex system studied by a bunch of prima donnas (me
>>> included) and which defies authoritative declarations. I base my
>>> views on hard-core, published literature (some of it mine, but most
>>> of it not), so saying otherwise is not helpful or true. The simple
>>> fact is that the opinions expressed in the CCSP report do not
>>> represent the real range of scientific literature (the IPCC fell into
>>> the same trap - so running to the IPCC's corner doesn't move things
>>> forward).
>>>
>>> I think I can boil my objections to the CCSP Impacts report to this
>>> one idea for the SE (and US): The changes in weather variables
>>> (measured in a systematic settings) of the past 30 years are within
>>> the range of natural variability. That's the statement that should
>>> have been front and center of this whole document because it is
>>> mathematically/scientifically defensible. And, it carries more
>>> weight with planners so you can say to them, "If it happened before,
>>> it will happen again - so get ready now." By the way, my State
>>> Climatologist response to the CCSP was well-received by legislators
>>> and stakeholders (including many in the federal government) and still
>>> gets hits at http://**vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/aosc/.
>>>
>>> There also was a page or so on the tropical troposphere-surface issue
>>> that I didn't talk about on my response. It was wrong because it did
>>> not include all the latest research (i.e. since 2006) on the
>>> continuing and significant difference between the two trends.
>>> Someone was acting as a fierce gatekeeper on that one - citing only
>>> things that agreed with the opinion shown even if poorly done (e.g.
>>> Santer et al. 2008 used ERSST data which I understand has now been
>>> changed in a way that discredits the conclusion there, and
>>> Haimberger's v1.2-1.4 are clearly spurious due to the error in ECMWF
>>> as published many places, but analyzed in detail in Sakamoto and
>>> Christy 2009). The results of Douglass et al. 2007 (not cited by
>>> CCSP) still stand since Santer et al. 2008 asked a very different
>>> question (and used bad data to boot) than we did. Our question was
>>> "Does the IPCC BEST ESTIMATE agree with the Best Data (including
>>> RSS)?" Answer - No. Santer et al. asked, "Does ANY IPCC model agree
>>> with ANY data set?" ... I think you can see the difference. The fact
>>> my 2007 tropical paper (the follow-on papers in 2009 were probably
>>> too late, but they substantiate the 2007 paper) was not cited
>>> indicates how biased this section was. Christy et al. 2007 assessed
>>> the accuracy of the datasets (Santer et al. did not - they assumed
>>> all datasets were equal without looking at the published problems)
>>> and we came up with a result that defied the "consensus" of the CCSP
>>> report - so, it was doomed to not be mentioned since it would disrupt
>>> the storyline. (And, as soon as RSS fixes their spurious jump in
>>> 1992, our MSU datasets will be almost indistinguishable.)
>>>
>>> This gets to the issue that the "consensus" reports now are just the
>>> consensus of those who agree with the consensus. The
>>> government-selected authors have become gatekeepers rather than
>>> honest brokers of information. That is a real tragedy, because when
>>> someone becomes a gatekeeper, they don't know they've become a
>>> gatekeeper - and begin to (sincerely) think the non-consensus
>>> scientists are just nuts (... it's more comfortable that way rather
>>> than giving them credit for being skeptical in the face of a paradigm).
>>>
>>> Take care.
>>>
>>> John C.
>>>
>>> p.s. a few quick notes are interspersed below.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thomas C Peterson wrote:
>>>> Hi, John,
>>>> I didn't want this to catch you by surprise.
>>>> Tom
>>>>
>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>> Subject: concerns about the Southeast chapter
>>>> Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> From: Thomas C Peterson <thomas.c.peterson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>> To: jim.obrien@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>>>> CC: Tom Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear Jim,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> First off and most importantly, congratulations on your recent
>>>> marriage. Anthony said it was the most touching wedding he has ever
>>>> been to. I wish you and your bride all the best.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for your comments and for passing on John Christy's
>>>> detailed concerns about the Southeast chapter of our report, /Global
>>>> Climate Change Impacts in the United States/. Please let me respond
>>>> to the key points he raised.
>>>>
>>>> In Dr. John Christy's June 23, 2009 document "Alabama climatologist
>>>> responds to U.S. government report on regional impacts of global
>>>> climate change", he primarily focused on 4 prime concerns:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Assessing changes since 1970.
>>>>
>>>> 2. Statements on hurricanes.
>>>>
>>>> 3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section).
>>>>
>>>> 4. Using models to assess the future.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /1. Assessing changes since 1970./
>>>>
>>>> The Southeast section has 5 figures and one table. One figure is on
>>>> changes in precipitation patterns from 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is
>>>> on patterns of days per year over 90F with two maps, one 1xxx xxxx xxxx,
>>>> the other 2xxx xxxx xxxx. One figure is on the change in freezing days
>>>> per year, 1xxx xxxx xxxx. The next figure is on changes to a barrier
>>>> island land from 2002 to 2005. And the last figure was on Sea
>>>> Surface Temperature from 1900 to the present. The table indicates
>>>> trends in temperature and precipitation over two periods, 1xxx xxxx xxxx
>>>> and 1xxx xxxx xxxx. As Dr. Christy indicates in his paper, the full
>>>> period and the period since 1970 are behaving differently. To help
>>>> explain this, the table shows them both. Of the 5 figures, only one
>>>> shows the changes over this shorter period.
>>>>
>>>> Since, as the IPCC has indicated, the human impact on climate isn't
>>>> distinguishable from natural variability until about 1950,
>>>> describing the changes experienced in the majority of the time since
>>>> 1950 would be a more logical link to future anthropogenic climate
>>>> change. In most of the report, maps have shown the changes over the
>>>> last 50 years. Because of the distinct behavior of time series of
>>>> precipitation and temperature in the Southeast, discussing the
>>>> period since 1970 seemed more appropriate. Though as the figures and
>>>> table indicate, this shorter period is not the sole or even major
>>>> focus.
>>>
>>> See crux of the matter in email above - looking at the whole time
>>> series is demanded by science. Any 30 or 50-year period will give
>>> changes - blaming the most recent on humans ignores the similar (or
>>> even more rapid) changes that occurred before industrialization (e.g.
>>> western drought in 12th century). The period since 1970 WAS the
>>> major focus in the SE section (mentioned 6 times in two pages). And,
>>> OF COURSE any 30-year sub-period will have different characteristics
>>> than the 100-year population from which it is extracted ... that
>>> doesn't prove anything.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /2. Statements on hurricanes./
>>>>
>>>> Dr. Christy takes issue with the report's statements about
>>>> hurricanes and quotes a line from the report and quotes an
>>>> individual hurricane expert who says that he disagrees with the
>>>> conclusions. The line in the report that Dr. Christy quotes comes
>>>> almost word for word out of CCSP SAP 3.3. While individual
>>>> scientists may disagree with the report's conclusions, this
>>>> conclusion came directly out of the peer-reviewed literature and
>>>> assessments. Dr. Christy also complains that "the report did not
>>>> include a plot of the actual hurricane landfalls". However, the
>>>> section in the Southeast chapter discussing landfalling hurricanes
>>>> states "see /National Climate Change/ section for a discussion of
>>>> past trends and future projections" and sure enough on page 35 there
>>>> is a figure showing land falling hurricanes along with a more in
>>>> depth discussion of hurricanes.
>>>>
>>> You didn't read my State Climatologist response carefully - I
>>> mentioned page 35 and noted again it talked about the most recent
>>> decades (and even then, the graph still didn't go back to 1850).
>>> This hurricane storyline was hit hard by many scientists - hence is
>>> further evidence the report was generated by a gatekeeper mentality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /3. Electrical grid disturbances (from the Energy section)./
>>>>
>>>> Moving out of the Southeast, Dr. Christy complains about one figure
>>>> in the Energy Chapter. Citing a climate skeptic's blog which cites
>>>> an individual described as the keeper of the data for the Energy
>>>> Information Administration (EIA), John writes that the rise in
>>>> weather related outages is largely a function of better reporting.
>>>> Yet the insert of weather versus non-weather-related outages shows a
>>>> much greater increase in weather-related outages than
>>>> non-weather-related outages. If all the increases were solely due
>>>> to better reporting, the differences between weather- and
>>>> non-weather-related outages would indicate a dramatic decrease over
>>>> this time period in non-weather related problems such as
>>>> transmission equipment failures, earthquakes, faults in line, faults
>>>> at substations, relaying malfunctions, and vandalism.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks to the efforts of EIA, after they took over the
>>>> responsibility of running the Department of Energy (DOE)
>>>> data-collection process around 1997, data collection became more
>>>> effective. Efforts were made in subsequent years to increase the
>>>> response rate and upgrade the reporting form. It was not until EIA's
>>>> improvement of the data collection that the important decoupling of
>>>> weather- and non-weather-related events (and a corresponding
>>>> increase in the proportion of all events due to weather extremes)
>>>> became visible.
>>>>
>>>> To adjust for potential response-rate biases, we have separated
>>>> weather- and non-weather-related trends into indices and found an
>>>> upward trend only in the weather-related time series.
>>>>
>>>> As confirmed by EIA, *if there were a systematic bias one would
>>>> expect it to be reflected in both data series (especially since any
>>>> given reporting site would report both types of events).*
>>>>
>>>> As an additional precaution, we focused on trends in the number of
>>>> events (rather than customers affected) to avoid fortuitous
>>>> differences caused by the population density where events occur.
>>>> This, however, has the effect of understating the weather impacts
>>>> because of EIA definitions (see survey methodology notes below).
>>>>
>>>> More details are available at:
>>>> http://**eetd.lbl.gov/emills/pubs/grid-disruptions.html
>>>
>>> The data were not systematically taken and should not have been shown
>>> .. basic rule of climate.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> /4. Using models to assess the future./
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone say anything about the future of the Southeast's climate?
>>>> Evidently according to John Christy, the answer is no. The basic
>>>> physics of the greenhouse effect and why increasing greenhouse gases
>>>> are warming and should be expected to continue to warm the planet
>>>> are well known and explained in the /Global Climate Change/ section
>>>> of the report. Climate models are used around the world to both
>>>> diagnose the observed changes in climate and to provide projections
>>>> for the future. There is a huge body of peer-reviewed literature,
>>>> including a large number of peer-reviewed climate change
>>>> assessments, supporting this use. But in Dr. Christy's "view,"
>>>> models should not be used for projections of the future, especially
>>>> for the Southeast. The report based, and indeed must base, its
>>>> results on the huge body of peer-reviewed scientific literature
>>>> rather than the view of one individual scientist.
>>>
>>> No one has proven models are capable of long-range forecasting.
>>> Modelers write and review their own literature - there are millions
>>> of dollars going into these enterprises, so what would you expect?
>>> Publication volume shouldn't impress anyone. The simple fact is we
>>> demonstrated in a straightforward and reproducible way that the
>>> actual trends over the past 30, 20, and 10 years are outside of the
>>> envelop of model predictions ... no one has disputed that finding
>>> with an alternative analysis - even when presented before
>>> congressional hearings where the opportunity for disagreement was
>>> openly available.
>>>>
>>>> I hope this helps relieve some of your concerns.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Tom Peterson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ************************************************************
>>> John R. Christy
>>> Director, Earth System Science Center voice: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Professor, Atmospheric Science fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Alabama State Climatologist
>>> University of Alabama in Huntsville
>>> http://**www.**nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html
>>>
>>> Mail: ESSC-Cramer Hall/University of Alabama in Huntsville,
>>> Huntsville AL 35899
>>> Express: Cramer Hall/ESSC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville AL 35805
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> *Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D.*
>>>
>>> Director, NOAA
Original Filename: 1249655311.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:28:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
good news Grant, we can trust him to be professional.
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,
mike
p.s. I've already had to correct both Andy Revkin and Joe Romm on this!
On Aug 6, 2009, at 7:19 PM, Grant Foster wrote:
Greetings,
I thought I'd let you all know that Steve Gahn has been assigned as editor for the
submission.
Sincerely,
Grant
______________________________________________________________________________________
Windows Live: Keep your life in sync. [1]Check it out.
--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [2]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
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
References
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
Hidden links:
5. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Original Filename: 1250169233.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Nature Aug 12
Date: Thu Aug 13 09:13:xxx xxxx xxxx
Mike, Gavin,
See the attached - odd quote by McIntyre in the middle of this
.. he is not interested in challenging the science of climate change or in nit-picking,
but is simply asking that the data be made available. "The only policy I want people to
change is their data-access policy"
I must have been in a parallel universe for the past 7-8 years!
The CRU web page referred to in the article is this one.
[1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/
I'm off at noon today - back in on Aug 20. I'll be checking email once a day,
but will not be looking at blog sites.
Olive Heffernan at Nature expects the Nature blog site to be hijacked by the deniers.
She also said she would put up an expanded article, but I can't see this.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/
Original Filename: 1250174764.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Niklaus Zimmermann" <niklaus.zimmermann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: ECOCHANGE budget available to UEA
Date: Thu Aug 13 10:46:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Nick,
Apologies if I've asked you this before, but I'm being asked about
the ECOCHANGE budget that appears to be available to UEA.
With the UEA budget there is money in categories that UEA has not
had money in before (in other EU projects). Do you know what this money
is supposed to be for? We understand the budget for personnel and also
travel, but it is the other categories - which seem to relate to more travel
and costs for capital equipment.
Keith is still off work, but is recovering well from his operation.
I'm off in the next few hours for 2 weeks away.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Filename: 1251384906.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: P.Jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
To: "Niklaus E. Zimmermann" <niklaus.zimmermann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ECOCHANGE budget available to UEA - update
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:55:06 +0100 (BST)
Cc: "Phil Jones" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Emmanuel Muhr" <emuhr@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Nick,
Thanks. Perhaps I'll need to contact Keith
as to why some of the items are in the budget.
I understand about the salary money.
Cheers
Phil
> Dear Phil, Emmanuel,
>
> sorry for late reply, I undergo
> evaluation these days. I add Emmanuel, so that he
> can correct if my answers are wrong!!!
>
> - In general, you decide how much you spend where as long
> as you have open tasks you are expected to contribute
> (which is the case for UEA, you are still involved in A5).
>
> - This means that you spend the money by declaration on
> the project netboard, and not by the original budget.
>
> - You cannot spend more salary, should there be no open
> task left for you.
>
> - You can spend more salary months than expected from the
> budget for a specific position, but you cannot spend
> more total money than the budget is.
>
> - One major constraint is teaching activity, which can
> only be spent in ECOCHANGE teaching activities (summer
> school), but you did not list any here.
>
> best,
> Nick
>
> PS: Dear Keith, I wish you all the best for
> recovery! Hope to see you soon again.
>
> At 17:34 26.08.2009, Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Nick,
>> I've now found out some more information.
>>
>> In the Consumables category, we had
Original Filename: 1252090220.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Ian Harris <i.harris@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: Hopefully fixed TMP
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:50:20 +0100
<x-flowed>
Hi Tim
I've re-run with the same database used for the previous 2006 run
(tmp.0705101334.dtb).
/cru/cruts/version_3_0/update_top/gridded_finals/data/data.0909041051/
tmp/cru_ts_3_00.1901.2008.tmp.dat.nc.gz
Is that any better? If not please can you send the traditional multi-
page country plots for me to pore over?
Cheers
Harry
On 3 Sep 2009, at 17:04, Tim Osborn wrote:
> Hi Harry and Phil,
>
> the mean level of the "updated-to-2008" CRU TS 3.0 now looks good,
> matching closely with the 1xxx xxxx xxxxmeans of the earlier CRU TS 3.0
> and
> CRU TS 2.1.
>
> Please see the attached PDF of country mean time series, comparing
> last-year's CRU TS 3.0 (black, up to 2005) with the most-recent CRU
> TS 3.0
> (pink, up to 2008).
>
> Latest version matches last-year's version well for the most part, and
> where differences do occur I can't say that the new version is any
> worse
> than last-year's version (some may be better).
>
> One exception is the hot JJA in Europe in 2003. This is less
> extreme in
> the latest version. See attached PNG for a blow-up of France in JJA.
>
> I'm sure some people will use CRU TS 3.0 to look at 2003 in Europe,
> so we
> need to be happy with the version we release.
>
> Perhaps some hot stations have been dropped as outliers (more than 3
> standard deviations from the mean?)?
>
> But I'm not sure if that is the reason, since outlier checking was
> already
> used in last-year's version, wasn't it?
>
> Does the outlier checking always check +-3 SD from xxx xxxx xxxxmean (or
> normal),
> or does it check +-3 SD from the local mean (30-years centred on the
> value) which would allow for a gradual warming in both mean and
> outlier
> threshold?
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
> On Wed, September 2, 2009 6:08 pm, Ian Harris wrote:
>> Tim
>>
>> When you have the time and/or the inclination, please can you run the
>> new TMP output through your IDL thingummajig?
>>
>> /cru/cruts/version_3_0/update_top/gridded_finals/data/data.
>> 0909021348/
>> tmp/cru_ts_3_00.1901.2008.tmp.dat.nc.gz
>>
>> Please let me know if you can't access it. I do appreciate your help!
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Harry
>
> --
> Dr. Tim Osborn
> RCUK Academic Fellow
> Climatic Research Unit
> School of Environmental Sciences
> University of East Anglia
> Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
> www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
Ian "Harry" Harris
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
</x-flowed>
Original Filename: 1252154659.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Darrell Kaufman <Darrell.Kaufman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Nick McKay <nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, David Schneider <dschneid@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Jonathan Overpeck <jto@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Bette L. Otto-Bliesner" <ottobli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Raymond Bradley <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Miller Giff <gmiller@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Bo Vinther <bo@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Arctic2k update?
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 08:44:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
All:
I received my first hate mail this AM, which helped me to realize that I shouldn't be
wasting time reading the blogs.
Regarding the "upside down man", as Nick's plot shows, when flipped, the Korttajarvi series
has little impact on the overall reconstructions. Also, the series was not included in the
calibration. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped the Korttajarvi data. We used the
density data as the temperature proxy, as recommended to me by Antii Ojala (co-author of
the original work). It's weakly inversely related to organic matter content. I should have
used the inverse of density as the temperature proxy. I probably got confused by the fact
that the 20th century shows very high density values and I inadvertently equated that
directly with temperature.
This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an error might come back to bite us. I
suggest that we nip it in the bud and write a brief update showing the corrected composite
(Nick's graph) and post it to RealClimate. Do you all agree?
There's other criticisms that have come up by McIntyre's group:
(1) We cherry-picked the tree-ring series in Eurasia. Apparently this is old ground, but do
we need to address why we chose the Yamal record over the Polar Urals? Apparently, there's
also a record from the Indigirka River region, which might not have been published and
doesn't seem to be included in Keith's recent summary. If we overlooked any record that met
our criteria, I suggest that we explain why. Keith: are you back? Can Ray or Mike provide
some advise?
(2) The correction for Dye-3 was criticized because the approach/rationale had not been
reviewed independently on its own. Bo: has this procedure now been published anywhere?
(3) We didn't publish any error analysis (e.g., leave-one-out ), but I recall that we did
do some of that prior to publication. Would it be worthwhile including this in our update?
The threshold-exceedence difference (O&B-style) does include a boot-strapped estimate of
errors. That might suffice, but is not the record we use for the temperature calibration.
(4) We selected records that showed 20th century warming. The only records that I know of
that go back 1000 years that we left out were from the Gulf of Alaska that are known to be
related strongly to precipitation, not temperature, and we stated this upfront. Do we want
to clarify that it would be inappropriate to use a record of precip to reconstruct
temperature? Or do we want to assume that precip should increase with temperature and add
those records in and show that the primary signals remain?
(5) McIntyre wrote to me to request the annual data series that we used to calculate the
10-year mean values (10-year means were up on the NOAA site the same AM as the paper was
published). The only "non-published" data are the annual series from the ice cores
(Agassiz, Dye-3, NGRIP, and Renland). We stated this in the footnote, but it does stretch
our assertion that all of the data are available publicly. Bo: How do you want to proceed?
Should I forward the annual data to McIntyre?
Please let me -- better yet, the entire group -- know whether you think we should post a
revision on RealScience, and whether we should include a reply to other criticism (1
through 5 above). I'm also thinking that I should write to Ojala and Tiljander directly to
apologize for inadvertently reversing their data.
Other thoughts or advise?
Darrell
On Sep 4, 2009, at 5:24 PM, Nick McKay wrote:
The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said.
I took a look at the original reference - the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray
density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had
higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong,
unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don't remember. Darrell, does this
sound right to you?
This dataset is truncated at 1800, so it doesn't enter the calibration, nor does it
affect the recent warming trend.
The attached plot (same as before) shows the effect of re-orienting the record on the
reconstruction. It doesn't change any of our major or minor interpretations of course.
Nick
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Nick McKay <[1]nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
Hi all,
I haven't checked the original reference for it's interpretation, but I checked the code
and we did use it in the orientation that he stated. He's also right that flipping
doesn't affect any of the conclusions. Actually, flipping it makes it fit in better with
the 1900-year trend.
I've attached a plot of the original, and another with Korttajarvi flipped.
Nick
[cid:2D818DBD-2Axxx xxxx xxxxE-B050-C1C5BACE9984@xxxxxxxxx.xxxdsltmp] Embedded Content: Effect of
flipping Korttajarvi.jpg: 00000001,0da94ca9,00000000,00000000
References
1. mailto:nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Original Filename: 1252164302.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Jonathan Overpeck <jto@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Darrell Kaufman <Darrell.Kaufman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Nick McKay <nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, David Schneider <dschneid@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Bette L. Otto-Bliesner" <ottobli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Raymond Bradley <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Miller Giff <gmiller@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Bo Vinther <bo@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Arctic2k update?
Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
D et al - Please write all emails as though they will be made public.
I would not rush and I would not respond to any of them until the best strategy is
developed - don't want to waste anyone's time, including yours or Mc's. Since the recon in
Science has an error, I think you do need to publish a correction in Science. In that, you
can very briefly not it didn't affect the calibration, nor the final result. I don't think
you have a choice here. And I don't think RealClimate alone is the place for this, although
RC could be good for the bigger list of issues. Don't do it on Mc;s blog. But, it would be
good to hear from Ray and Mike, since they have the most experience in getting it right.
Here are some other QUICK thoughts - don't count on me for the next week. Proposal hell and
traveling.
Make sure you have Keith's feedback before saying anything about the dendro aspects.
Don't know about Dye3 issue
Error analysis should be done and be the topic of another paper - it wasn't included in
this paper, so it's something that should be done outside the peer-review process. There is
lots of new research to be done, and someone should do it as time allows. Don't get pushed
into something too rushed or preliminary, and your defense is that you wrote a paper that
reviewed well and was published. The goal wasn't to do everything in this paper.
#4 - your are absolutely right and that could be in a blog someplace, or just let them go
ahead and do a stupid thing. If this was a climate field recon it would be different, no?
#5 is tricky. Giving him the data would be good, but only if it is yours to give. You can't
give him data that you got from others and are not allowed to share. But, it would be nice
if he could have access to all the data that we used - that's the way science is supposed
to work. See what Mike and Ray say...
Be careful, very careful. But now you know why I advocated redoing all the analyses a few
months ago - to make sure we got it all right. We knew we'd get this scrutiny.
This paper has had great impact so far, so that's something to remember - its good work.
Thanks, peck
On 9/5/09 8:44 AM, "Darrell Kaufman" <[1]Darrell.Kaufman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
All:
I received my first hate mail this AM, which helped me to realize that I shouldn't be
wasting time reading the blogs.
Regarding the "upside down man", as Nick's plot shows, when flipped, the Korttajarvi
series has little impact on the overall reconstructions. Also, the series was not
included in the calibration. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped the
Korttajarvi data. We used the density data as the temperature proxy, as recommended to
me by Antii Ojala (co-author of the original work). It's weakly inversely related to
organic matter content. I should have used the inverse of density as the temperature
proxy. I probably got confused by the fact that the 20th century shows very high density
values and I inadvertently equated that directly with temperature.
This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an error might come back to bite us.
I suggest that we nip it in the bud and write a brief update showing the corrected
composite (Nick's graph) and post it to RealClimate. Do you all agree?
There's other criticisms that have come up by McIntyre's group:
(1) We cherry-picked the tree-ring series in Eurasia. Apparently this is old ground, but
do we need to address why we chose the Yamal record over the Polar Urals? Apparently,
there's also a record from the Indigirka River region, which might not have been
published and doesn't seem to be included in Keith's recent summary. If we overlooked
any record that met our criteria, I suggest that we explain why. Keith: are you back?
Can Ray or Mike provide some advise?
(2) The correction for Dye-3 was criticized because the approach/rationale had not been
reviewed independently on its own. Bo: has this procedure now been published anywhere?
(3) We didn't publish any error analysis (e.g., leave-one-out ), but I recall that we
did do some of that prior to publication. Would it be worthwhile including this in our
update? The threshold-exceedence difference (O&B-style) does include a boot-strapped
estimate of errors. That might suffice, but is not the record we use for the temperature
calibration.
(4) We selected records that showed 20th century warming. The only records that I know
of that go back 1000 years that we left out were from the Gulf of Alaska that are known
to be related strongly to precipitation, not temperature, and we stated this upfront. Do
we want to clarify that it would be inappropriate to use a record of precip to
reconstruct temperature? Or do we want to assume that precip should increase with
temperature and add those records in and show that the primary signals remain?
(5) McIntyre wrote to me to request the annual data series that we used to calculate the
10-year mean values (10-year means were up on the NOAA site the same AM as the paper was
published). The only "non-published" data are the annual series from the ice cores
(Agassiz, Dye-3, NGRIP, and Renland). We stated this in the footnote, but it does
stretch our assertion that all of the data are available publicly. Bo: How do you want
to proceed? Should I forward the annual data to McIntyre?
Please let me -- better yet, the entire group -- know whether you think we should post a
revision on RealScience, and whether we should include a reply to other criticism (1
through 5 above). I'm also thinking that I should write to Ojala and Tiljander directly
to apologize for inadvertently reversing their data.
Other thoughts or advise?
Darrell
On Sep 4, 2009, at 5:24 PM, Nick McKay wrote:
The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said.
I took a look at the original reference - the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray
density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had
higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong,
unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don't remember. Darrell, does this
sound right to you?
This dataset is truncated at 1800, so it doesn't enter the calibration, nor does it
affect the recent warming trend.
The attached plot (same as before) shows the effect of re-orienting the record on the
reconstruction. It doesn't change any of our major or minor interpretations of course.
Nick
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Nick McKay <[2]nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
Hi all,
I haven't checked the original reference for it's interpretation, but I checked the code
and we did use it in the orientation that he stated. He's also right that flipping
doesn't affect any of the conclusions. Actually, flipping it makes it fit in better with
the 1900-year trend.
I've attached a plot of the original, and another with Korttajarvi flipped.
Nick
[cid:3334994702_4110695]
Jonathan T. Overpeck
Co-Director, Institute of the Environment
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Mail and Fedex Address:
Institute of the Environment
715 N. Park Ave. 2nd Floor
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
direct tel: xxx xxxx xxxx
Email: [3]jto@u.arizona.edu
PA Lou Regalado xxx xxxx xxxx
[4]regalado@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Embedded Content: image7.jpg: 00000001,780e1428,00000000,00000000
References
1. file://localhost/tmp/Darrell.Kaufman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. file://localhost/tmp/nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. file://localhost/tmp/jto@u.arizona.edu
4. file://localhost/tmp/regalado@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Original Filename: 1252233095.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Darrell Kaufman <Darrell.Kaufman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Bo Vinther <bo@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Arctic2k update?
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 06:31:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Nick McKay <nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, David Schneider <dschneid@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Jonathan Overpeck <jto@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Bette L. Otto-Bliesner" <ottobli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Raymond Bradley" <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Miller Giff <gmiller@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Keith Briffa" <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Bo and others:
Regarding the annual data: You're correct that we only use 10-year means throughout our
calculations (Fig 2 shows annual values, but are not used in any calculation/conclusion).
In his e-mail to me, McIntyre requested the annual data that we say are not publicly
available as a footnote to Table S1.
Unless anyone has another suggestion, I will reply and send him the 10-year data (which is
already posted at NOAA-Paleoclimate) and explain that they were the basis for all of the
calculations. He might want the annual data that the mean values were based on. I suppose
we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Darrell
On Sep 6, 2009, at 5:42 AM, Bo Vinther wrote:
Hi Darrell
Sorry to hear that you are getting trouble for doing such a nice paper....I by the way
agree completely with Peck that we should not be rushed and that a correction probably
should go into Science.
Anyway, let me answer the two questions you had for me:
2) Correcting ice core data for upstream effects should not be controversial (while not
correcting in areas of flow should be highly controversial indeed!).
Upstream correction of delta-18O was in fact already done 30 years ago for the Milcent ice
core - a quick quote from Hammer et al. 1978, page 14:
"The delta values are corrected for decreasing deltas up-slope at the site of formation of
the individual layers"
Hammer, C. U., H. B. Clausen, W. Dansgaard, N. Gundestrup, S. J.
Johnsen and N. Reeh, Dating of Greenland ice cores by flow models,
isotopes, volcanic debris, and continental dust, J. Glaciol., 20, 326,
1978.
So upstream correction of delta data from ice cores 8using ice flow models9 has in fact
been performed since the year I was born.....
5) I will suggest that we release the 1xxx xxxx xxxxsection of the annually resolved ice core
data, as these are the data that go into figure 2 in the paper.
Such a limited release I can permit immediately.
Releasing everything is something different and I can't see the need - as far as I rememver
we are not presenting/using the xxx xxxx xxxxpart of the series in annual resolution anywhere in
the paper - or am I wrong?
Cheers........Bo
Darrell Kaufman wrote:
All:
I received my first hate mail this AM, which helped me to realize that I shouldn't be
wasting time reading the blogs.
Regarding the "upside down man", as Nick's plot shows, when flipped, the Korttajarvi series
has little impact on the overall reconstructions. Also, the series was not included in the
calibration. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that I flipped the Korttajarvi data. We used the
density data as the temperature proxy, as recommended to me by Antii Ojala (co-author of
the original work). It's weakly inversely related to organic matter content. I should have
used the inverse of density as the temperature proxy. I probably got confused by the fact
that the 20th century shows very high density values and I inadvertently equated that
directly with temperature.
This is new territory for me, but not acknowledging an error might come back to bite us. I
suggest that we nip it in the bud and write a brief update showing the corrected composite
(Nick's graph) and post it to RealClimate. Do you all agree?
There's other criticisms that have come up by McIntyre's group:
(1) We cherry-picked the tree-ring series in Eurasia. Apparently this is old ground, but do
we need to address why we chose the Yamal record over the Polar Urals? Apparently, there's
also a record from the Indigirka River region, which might not have been published and
doesn't seem to be included in Keith's recent summary. If we overlooked any record that met
our criteria, I suggest that we explain why. Keith: are you back? Can Ray or Mike provide
some advise?
(2) The correction for Dye-3 was criticized because the approach/rationale had not been
reviewed independently on its own. Bo: has this procedure now been published anywhere?
(3) We didn't publish any error analysis (e.g., leave-one-out ), but I recall that we did
do some of that prior to publication. Would it be worthwhile including this in our update?
The threshold-exceedence difference (O&B-style) does include a boot-strapped estimate of
errors. That might suffice, but is not the record we use for the temperature calibration.
(4) We selected records that showed 20th century warming. The only records that I know of
that go back 1000 years that we left out were from the Gulf of Alaska that are known to be
related strongly to precipitation, not temperature, and we stated this upfront. Do we want
to clarify that it would be inappropriate to use a record of precip to reconstruct
temperature? Or do we want to assume that precip should increase with temperature and add
those records in and show that the primary signals remain?
(5) McIntyre wrote to me to request the annual data series that we used to calculate the
10-year mean values (10-year means were up on the NOAA site the same AM as the paper was
published). The only "non-published" data are the annual series from the ice cores
(Agassiz, Dye-3, NGRIP, and Renland). We stated this in the footnote, but it does stretch
our assertion that all of the data are available publicly. Bo: How do you want to proceed?
Should I forward the annual data to McIntyre?
Please let me -- better yet, the entire group -- know whether you think we should post a
revision on RealScience, and whether we should include a reply to other criticism (1
through 5 above). I'm also thinking that I should write to Ojala and Tiljander directly to
apologize for inadvertently reversing their data.
Other thoughts or advise?
Darrell
On Sep 4, 2009, at 5:24 PM, Nick McKay wrote:
The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said.
I took a look at the original reference - the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray
density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had
higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong,
unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don't remember. Darrell, does this
sound right to you?
This dataset is truncated at 1800, so it doesn't enter the calibration, nor does it
affect the recent warming trend.
The attached plot (same as before) shows the effect of re-orienting the record on the
reconstruction. It doesn't change any of our major or minor interpretations of course.
Nick
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Nick McKay <[1]nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
Hi all,
I haven't checked the original reference for it's interpretation, but I checked the code
and we did use it in the orientation that he stated. He's also right that flipping
doesn't affect any of the conclusions. Actually, flipping it makes it fit in better with
the 1900-year trend.
I've attached a plot of the original, and another with Korttajarvi flipped.
Nick
References
1. mailto:nmckay@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Original Filename: 1252672219.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: claudia tebaldi <ctebaldi@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Important: Input for Funding
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:30:xxx xxxx xxxx
Reply-to: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Knutti Reto <reto.knutti@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Stott, Peter" <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gabi Hegerl <gabi.hegerl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Zwiers,Francis [Ontario]" <francis.zwiers@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tim Barnett <tbarnett-ul@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Hans von Storch <hvonstorch@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, David Karoly <dkaroly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Toru Nozawa <nozawa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Daithi Stone <stoned@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Richard Smith <rls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Nathan Gillett <n.gillett@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Wehner <MFWehner@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Doug Nychka <nychka@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Xuebin Zhang <Xuebin.Zhang@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Knutson <Tom.Knutson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tim Delsole <delsole@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Jones, Gareth S" <gareth.s.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Stephen Leroy <leroy@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, seung-ki.min@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, dpierce@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
<x-flowed>
Dear Claudia,
The 13th session of the Working Group on Climate Modelling (WGCM) is
going to be taking place in San Francisco at the end of this month.
PCMDI is hosting this event. I just received an invitation to talk about
IDAG at this meeting. I'd be very happy to do this, but would appreciate
some guidance from you and others regarding what aspects of IDAG you'd
like me to discuss.
With best regards,
Ben
claudia tebaldi wrote:
> Hi again
>
> I'm attaching the current version after some remassaging, especially of
> the task list.
> There is a need for a reference that I would like to get from David
> Karoly, and a general request for input having to do with the synthesis
> products that originally were described as instrumental to AR5 but Gabi
> thinks they would not be prepared in time for that. So I'm wondering if
> people have specific ideas for the next round of review papers that we
> could describe at the end of Section 3 of the document.
>
> MOST IMPORTANTLY:
> I need some very specific input from *all of you* (only exception,
> Francis's group).
>
> After asking Anjuli I can confirm that government employees cannot
> receive funding besides travel reimbursement. So for those of you that
> are GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, the only thing that remains to do is to go
> through the document once again, make sure your work (past and future)
> is not misrepresented, and then send me a note with an "OK" or your new
> comments, specifying that you are a government employee (please don't
> let me guess it).
>
> For those of you that are ACADEMICS WITH 12 MONTHS SALARY all that we
> can budget is a small amount of consulting fees, up to 2 weeks' worth.
> If you belong to this category please respond saying that you are or you
> are not interested. If you are, then include in the document at the end
> in the place already arranged for it a statement of work referring to
> specific tasks as they stand in Section 3 of the narrative, and a
> bio-sketch (see end of this email for specific instructions).
>
> For THOSE OF YOU THAT CAN GET FULL SUPPORT, please say if you want it or
> not, and if you do, then do as I requested above: include in the
> document at the end in the place already arranged for it a statement of
> work referring to specific tasks as they stand in Section 3 of the
> narrative, and a bio-sketch (see end of this email for specific
> instructions).
>
> Please shoot me an email and say something, esp. those of you abroad for
> whom I'm not familiar with affiliations/months of salary. Needless to
> say, if you don't send the bio and don't put yourself down in the
> Statements of Work session you won't be budgeted but for travel
> reimbursement.
>
> Can I ask you to do this at your earliest convenience, but at the latest
> before mid-week next week?
>
> Thanks
>
> c
>
> PS I received only 2 figures in response to my earlier request. If you
> take the time to read the narrative and have a good figure for it, send
> it along!
>
> ############################
> Biographical Sketches: Instructions
> ############################
>
> The biographical sketch is limited to a maximum of two pages. It must
> contain name and position title, organization, degree, years and field
> of study for each academic degree; a listing of research and
> professional positions, awards, and honors; and references to all
> publications for the past three years along with any earlier
> publications pertinent to this application. If this list causes the
> biographical sketch to exceed two pages, select the most pertinent
> publications to stay within the page limit.
>
>
> Current and Pending Support
>
> The PI/PD(s) are requested to list all their current and pending
> non-Federal and Federal support.
>
> Identification of Potential Conflicts of Interest/Bias in Selection of
> Reviewers
>
> Provide the following information:
>
> Collaborators and Co-editors: List in alphabetical order all
> persons, including their current organizational affiliation, who are, or
> who have been, collaborators or co-authors with you on a research
> project, book or book article, report, abstract, or paper during the 48
> months preceding the submission of this application. Also, list any
> individuals who are currently, or have been, co-editors with you on a
> special issue of a journal, compendium, or conference proceedings during
> the 24 months preceding the submission of this application. If there are
> no collaborators or co-editors to report, state 'none'.
>
> Graduate and Postdoctoral Advisors and Advisees: List the names and
> current organizational affiliations of your graduate advisor(s) and
> principal postdoctoral sponsor(s) during the last 5 years. Also, list
> the names and current organizational affiliations of your graduate
> students and postdoctoral associates during the past 5 years.
>
> --
> Claudia Tebaldi
> Research Scientist, Climate Central
> http://*www.*climatecentral.org
> & Adjunct Professor
> Department of Statistics - UBC Vancouver
> office xxx xxxx xxxx(Canadian area code)
> cell xxx xxxx xxxx(US area code)
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
FAX: (9xxx xxxx xxxx
email: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
</x-flowed>
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From: Malcolm Hughes <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Melvin <t.m.melvin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: recent paper
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:23:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Keith <K.Briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Hi Tom - please find the Esper article in question attached. The
so-called Indigirka River data set is not yet available because it has
not been published. I am currently working on that with Russian
colleagues, and was indeed in Switzerland the week before last to work
with one of them on specifically this. All being well, there will be an
accepted manuscript before next summer, and at that point I will make
the data freely available. Once we get to that point, I'll let you know,
of course. Cheers, Malcolm
Tom Melvin wrote:
> Malcolm,
>
> 1. There was a recent Esper Siberian paper I recall reading but I
> cannot find it at the moment (my comment was on the Divergence
> pitfalls paper). I will find the paper and see if there is an
> explanation.
>
> 2. For trend distortion to produce a "divergence" effect there needs
> to be a distinct increase (or decrease) over the last few decades of
> growth, e.g. at TTHH and curve fitting methods should be used. In the
> attached figure the Scandinavian site groups (red) have an increase at
> 1920 and are likely to show divergence using curve fitting methods.
> Some of the eastern most chronologies might also show divergence if
> 250+ year old trees were used.
>
> 3. RCS should not produce "divergence" over decades as an artifact if
> sub-fossil trees are used. RCS on modern chronologies has all sorts
> of bias. We have lots of ideas to test in the divergence project and
> lots of data to test them on.
>
> 4. Keith has been complained at by Climate Audit for cherry picking
> and not using your long Indigirka River data set. Not used because we
> did not have the data. Please, could we have the data? We will make
> proper aknowledgement/coauthorship if we use the data.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> At 16:35 21/09/2009, you wrote:
>> Tom, I don't disagree with your take on the lack of originality of
>> much of what is in the paper. The question is: why is there apparently
>> divergence in ring width in some of this region in Briffa et al 98 but
>> not in this paper? Isn't espers failure to see divergence
>> counterintuitive when using RCS in his way?
>> Cheers, Malcolm
>>
>>
>> On Sep 21, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Tom Melvin <t.m.melvin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Malcolm,
>>>
>>> The Esper "Divergence pitfalls .." paper does not appear to add
>>> anything of significance. None of the figures show any form of the
>>> divergence discussed in papers e.g. a recent (last few decades)
>>> change in the slope of tree-ring growth indices compared to climate.
>>> Differences in overall slope, generally weak relationships,
>>> differences in variance, and the effects of using selected
>>> calibration periods are all problems to be addressed in
>>> reconstructions but are not divergence.
>>>
>>> I cannot foresee needing to reference this paper in discussions of
>>> divergence as all the suggestions have more detailed, earlier
>>> references.
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>>
>>> At 22:33 18/09/2009, you wrote:
>>>> Hi Tom - I had a good talk with Keith on the phone the other day,
>>>> mainly to wish him well. He did suggest I ask you for your take on
>>>> the recent Esper et al paper on divergence (or rather the lack of
>>>> it) in Siberia. Looks like the problem disappears. WHat do you
>>>> think? Cheers, Malcolm
>>>
>>> Dr. Tom Melvin
>>> Climatic Research Unit
>>> University of East Anglia
>>> Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.
>>>
>>> Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
>>> Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
> Dr. Tom Melvin
> Climatic Research Unit
> University of East Anglia
> Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.
>
> Phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
> Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
</x-flowed>
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From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: help
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Caspar Ammann <ammann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Hey Tom, thanks for checking w/ me on this. Re, Moberg: Yes, in fact we (me, Phil, Tim,
Keith, Caspar, etc.) submitted a comment to Nature about the problem w/ the variance
scaling used by Moberg. It can easily be shown to inflate the low- frequency variance in
synthetic experiments. I've attached both the original comment (which they judged to be too
technical to merit publication) and also a J. Climate paper where we discussed the same
result (see Figure 5 and associated discussion). Re, Von Storch et al. Yes, the paper you
have in mind is Osborn et al Climate Dynamics '06. I only seem to have the preprint though
(attached), please let me know if I can be of any further help w/ an of this, mike p.s. you
can delete the U.Va email address--haven't been there for 4 years! On Sep 22, 2009, at
10:31 AM, Tom Wigley wrote: > Dear all, > > (Apologies Mike for email address confusion --
one of them will > get you I hope.) > > I need some help to finish a report I've had to
write for EPRI -- > which is due in a few days. Hence the questions below ... > > (1) The
Moberg paper (2005 Nature) is used by the skeptics as evidence > that most of recent
warming could still be natural. Has anyone > published a critique/criticism of this? It
seems to me take this > work is fundamentally flawed. First, variance scaling is crap >
statistics as it produces results with far less explained variance > than normal
least-squares regression. Second, the paper seems to > have no independent validation.
Third, what happens if one just takes > his low-frequency (numbered in his Fig. 1) points
and calculates > the area average? Surely this will have much greater variability > than
the full global mean? (If no-one has done this please let me > know -- I can do it very
easily myself.) But perhaps his scaling > method circumvents this "problem"? > > (2) What
is the paper of Caspar's (with Doug Nychka) that shows > that McIntyre is wrong? Are there
other papers I should see/cite > in this regard? > > (3) What are the papers that explain
what is wrong with the von > Storch ECHO simulation? I think Tim Osborn did something on
this. > > Many thanks for your help, > Tom. > -- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth
System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxxWalker
Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxxThe Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxxwebsite: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html Hey Tom,
thanks for checking w/ me on this.
Re, Moberg: Yes, in fact we (me, Phil, Tim, Keith, Caspar, etc.) submitted a comment to
Nature about the problem w/ the variance scaling used by Moberg. It can easily be shown to
inflate the low-frequency variance in synthetic experiments.
I've attached both the original comment (which they judged to be too technical to merit
publication) and also a J. Climate paper where we discussed the same result (see Figure 5
and associated discussion).
Re, Von Storch et al. Yes, the paper you have in mind is Osborn et al Climate Dynamics '06.
I only seem to have the preprint though (attached),
please let me know if I can be of any further help w/ an of this,
mike
p.s. you can delete the U.Va email address--haven't been there for 4 years!
On Sep 22, 2009, at 10:31 AM, Tom Wigley wrote:
Dear all,
(Apologies Mike for email address confusion -- one of them will
get you I hope.)
I need some help to finish a report I've had to write for EPRI --
which is due in a few days. Hence the questions below ...
(1) The Moberg paper (2005 Nature) is used by the skeptics as evidence
that most of recent warming could still be natural. Has anyone
published a critique/criticism of this? It seems to me take this
work is fundamentally flawed. First, variance scaling is crap
statistics as it produces results with far less explained variance
than normal least-squares regression. Second, the paper seems to
have no independent validation. Third, what happens if one just takes
his low-frequency (numbered in his Fig. 1) points and calculates
the area average? Surely this will have much greater variability
than the full global mean? (If no-one has done this please let me
know -- I can do it very easily myself.) But perhaps his scaling
method circumvents this "problem"?
(2) What is the paper of Caspar's (with Doug Nychka) that shows
that McIntyre is wrong? Are there other papers I should see/cite
in this regard?
(3) What are the papers that explain what is wrong with the von
Storch ECHO simulation? I think Tim Osborn did something on this.
Many thanks for your help,
Tom.
--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [1]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
website: [2]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
"Dire Predictions" book site:
[3]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
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"c:eudoraattachosbornetalClimDynInPress06.pdf"
References
Visible links
1. mailto:mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
3. http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
Hidden links:
4. http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Original Filename: 1254108338.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly
explain the 1940s warming blip.
If you look at the attached plot you will see that the
land also shows the 1940s blip (as I'm sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC,
then this would be significant for the global mean -- but
we'd still have to explain the land blip.
I've chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an
ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of
ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common
forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of
these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are
1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips -- higher sensitivity
plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things
consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip,
but we are still left with "why the blip".
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol
effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced
ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling
in the NH -- just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note -- from
MAGICC) that the 1xxx xxxx xxxxwarming cannot be solar. The Sun can
get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal
solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987
(and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s
makes the 1xxx xxxx xxxxwarming larger than the SH (which it
currently is notxxx xxxx xxxxbut not really enough.
So ... why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem?
(SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I'd
appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom.
</x-flowed>
Attachment Converted: "c:eudoraattachTTHEMIS.xls"
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From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: 1940s
Date: Mon Sep 28 10:20:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Tom,
A few thoughts
[1]http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1xxx xxxx xxxx/preprint/2009/pdf/10.1175_2009JCLI3089.1.pd
f
This is a link to the longer Thompson et al paper. It isn't yet out in final form - Nov09
maybe?
[2]http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/a-look-at-the-thompson-et-al-paper-hi-tech-wiggle
-matching-and-removal-of-natural-variables/
is a link to wattsupwiththat - not looked through this apart from a quick scan. Dave
Thompson just emailed me this over the weekend and said someone had been busy! They seemed
to have not fully understood what was done.
Have looked at the plots. I'm told that the HadSST3 paper is fairly near to being
submitted, but I've still yet to see a copy. More SST data have been added for the WW2 and
WW1 periods, but according to John Kennedy they have not made much difference to these
periods.
Here's the two ppts I think I showed in Boulder in June. These were from April 09, so
don't know what these would look like now. SH is on the left and adjustment there seems
larger, for some reason - probably just British ships there?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but the adjustments won't reduce the 1940s
blip but enhance it. It won't change the 1xxx xxxx xxxxperiod, just raise the 10 years after Aug
45.
I expect MOHC are looking at the NH minus SH series re the aerosols. My view is that a
cooler temps later in the 1950s and 1960s it is easier to explain.
Land warming in the 1940s and late 1930s is mainly high latitude in NH.
One other thing - MOHC are also revising the 1xxx xxxx xxxxnormals. This will likely have more
effect in the SH.
With the SH around 1910s there is the issue of exposure problems in Australia - see
Neville's paper.
This shouldn't be an issue in NZ - except maybe before 1880, but could be in southern
South America. New work in Spain suggest screens got renewed about 1900, so maybe this
happened in Chile and Argentina, but Mossmann was head of the Argentine NMS so he may have
got them to use Stevenson screens early.
Neville has never been successful getting any OZ funding to sort out pre-1910 temps
everywhere except Qld.
Here's a paper in CC on European exposure problems. There is also one on Spanish series.
Cheers
Phil
At 06:25 28/09/2009, Tom Wigley wrote:
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly
explain the 1940s warming blip.
If you look at the attached plot you will see that the
land also shows the 1940s blip (as I'm sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC,
then this would be significant for the global mean -- but
we'd still have to explain the land blip.
I've chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an
ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of
ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common
forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of
these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are
1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips -- higher sensitivity
plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things
consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip,
but we are still left with "why the blip".
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol
effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced
ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling
in the NH -- just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note -- from
MAGICC) that the 1xxx xxxx xxxxwarming cannot be solar. The Sun can
get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal
solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987
(and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s
makes the 1xxx xxxx xxxxwarming larger than the SH (which it
currently is notxxx xxxx xxxxbut not really enough.
So ... why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem?
(SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I'd
appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom.
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1xxx xxxx xxxx/preprint/2009/pdf/10.1175_2009JCLI3089.1.pdf
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/a-look-at-the-thompson-et-al-paper-hi-tech-wiggle-matching-and-removal-of-natural-variables/
Original Filename: 1254163301.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Susan Parham <sp@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Peter Kenway <peter.kenway@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Adger Neil Prof (ENV)" <N.Adger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mick Denness <m.denness@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Andrew Gouldson <a.gouldson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, c.l.busfield@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom MacInnes <tom.macinnes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Niamh Carey <ncarey@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, amanda@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: I am afraid we didn't get the JRF climate change research
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:41:41 +0100
Cc: Denny Gray <dg@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Emma Cranidge <ec@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tim Maiden <tm@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mary Anderson <ma@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Helen Chalmers <hc@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Niall Machin <nm@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gerard Couper <gc@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Dear All
Im afraid its bad news on the JRF bid. We were not selected.
The gist of the letter I have now received says the problem was that it went over the
Original Filename: 1254163518.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: FW: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:45:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi all
About time. Incidentally i gave a copy to Mike McPhaden and discussed it with him last
week when we were together at the OceanObs'09 conference. Mike is President of AGU.
Basically this is an acceptance with a couple of suggestions for extras, and some
suggestions for toning down the rhetoric. I had already tried that a bit. My reaction is
that the main thing is to expedite this. That means no extras unless it really makes
sense. And removal of a few unnecessary words like "absolutely".
In the abstract, we have a number of such adjectives that could be removed: I agree with
Rev 3 in this.
"greatly overstates" could be just "overstates" as it is reinforced better later.
"severely overestimates" could be just "overestimates"
"faulty analysis" maybe "flawed analysis"?
"extremely high" maybe "very high" or "unduly high"
I would leave last sentence alone though as the main comment.
A few more comments embedded below.
Grant Foster wrote:
> From: [1]jgr-atmospheres@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:54:05 +0000
> To: [2]tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Subject: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
> CC: [3]twistor9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>
> Manuscript Number: 2009JD012960
> Manuscript Title: Comment on "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric
temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Reviewer Comments
>
> Reviewer #1 (Comments):
>
> This paper does an excellent job of showing the errors in the analytical methods used
by McLean et al. and why their conclusions
> about the influence of ENSO on global air temperature is incorrect.
> I have only a couple of suggestions to help clarify their analysis of the methods.
First, a little more explanation of the comment about the time derivative reduced to an
additive constant would help. Second, in the analysis of the artificial time series I
think it would be interesting to show the results of both steps of filtering (running
mean and derivative) as separate time series. This would help the reader understand why
the filtering creates false correlations. The only other suggestion is to find a better
adjective than "faulty" in the abstract to characterize the analysis.
>
It is not so easy to see the result from the derivative owing to the phase shift. The
spectrum actually does a better job. I would address this comment in this way and change
"faulty".
>
> Reviewer #2 (Comments):
>
> I think this comment on McLean et al can be published more or less as is.
>
> I have two comments
>
> First, in the abstract (page 3, line 15), I'm not sure that "inflating" is quite the
right verb - the paper itself does not make the point that the filter constructed by
McLean et al inflates power in the 2-6 year window. Perhaps "isolating" would be a
better verb.
Yes it should not be in abstract if not in text. Need to point out that the response
function in Fig. 1 is greater than unity and does "inflate". So adjust the text.
>
> Secondly, I think the points that are being made with Figures 4 and 5 could be
strengthened by adding to the right of each plot of a pair of time series, a scatter
plot of the pairs of values available at each time. Such a scatter plot would help to
clearly illustrate the absence (upper panels) or presence (lower panels) of correlation
between red and black values.
I don't think this helps. There is nothing to be gained from a scatter plot that a
correlation or regression value does not summarize.
>
>
> Reviewer #3 (Comments):
>
> Accept pending major changes (mainly in style not scientific comment)
>
> The real mystery here, of course, is how the McLean et al. paper ever made it into
JGR. How that happened, I have no idea. I can't see it ever getting published through J
Climate. The analyses in McLean et al. are among the worst I have seen in the climate
literature. The paper is also a poorly guised attack on the integrity of the climate
community, and I guess that is why Foster et al. have taken the energy to contradict its
findings.
>
> So the current paper (Foster et al.) should certainly be accepted. Someone needs to
address the science in the McLean et al paper in the peer-reviewed literature. But the
current paper could be - and should be - done better. That's why I am suggesting major
changes before the paper is accepted. All of my suggestions have to do more with the
tone and framing of the current paper, rather than its content.
>
> 1. As noted above, I agree McLean et al is problematic. But as it is written, the
current paper almost stoops to the level of "blog diatribe". The current paper does not
read like a peer-reviewed journal article. The tone is sometimes dramatic and sometimes
accusatory. It is inconsistent with the language one normally encounters in the
objectively-based, peer-reviewed literature. For examples....
> - In the abstract: Do you really need all of these adjectives?...'greatly overstates';
'severely overestimates'; 'faulty analysis'; 'extremely high'.
Agree, see above
> - In the introduction... 'Unfortunately, their conclusions are seriously in error..."
strikes me as overly subjective. Better to say: 'We will demonstrate that their
conclusions are strongly dependent on ....' or something like that...
Don't go that far. Could drop "seriously" but they are "in error"
> - Page X-6: 'tell us absolutely nothing'. Surely it's enough to state 'tell us
nothing'.
agree
> - Page X-9: 'it is misleading...' That's a strong word. It may be true. But I think we
should rise above such accusations.
misleading is OK. I did a search (not sure I have latest) and found "grossly misleading"
and the "grossly" could be removed.
>
> Anyway, I'm sure the lead author gets my point. I think the current paper will have a
much greater impact (and can claim the high road) if it is rewritten in a more objective
manner.
>
> 2. Similarly, instead of framing the paper as "Taking down McLean et al.", why not
focus more on interesting aspects of the science, such as the frequency dependence
between ENSO and global-mean temperature (perhaps cross-correlation analysis would be
useful); the importance of not extrapolating results from one timescale to another
timescale; or the lack of trends in ENSO. That way, the current paper contributes to the
peer-reviewed literature while also doing a service by highlighting the problems with
McLean et al.
I think I tried to emphasize that this should be a teaching moment. Even more important
given the time lapse.
>
> 3. In general, the current paper is sloppy and needs tightening. I don't think the
lead author needs 10 pages of text to make the main points.
>
>
So over to you to generate the next draft.
Thanks
Kevin
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [4]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [5]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305
References
1. mailto:jgr-atmospheres@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
2. mailto:tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
3. mailto:twistor9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
4. mailto:trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
5. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
Original Filename: 1254175144.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: latest
Date: 28 Sep 2009 17:59:xxx xxxx xxxx
Hi Tim, I know Keith is out of commission for a while (give him my
regards when you see him), but someone needs to at least give some
context to the latest McIntyre meme.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2Q5ZGExZTc3ZTlmMTA5OTdhOGRjNzdlNmU4N2M4ZTg=
None of us at RC have any real idea what was done or why and so we are
singularly unable to sensibly counter the flood of nonsense. Of course,
most of the reaction is hugely overblown and mixed up but it would be
helpful to have some kind of counterpoint to the main thrust. If you can
point to someone else that could be helpful, please do!
Thanks
Gavin
Original Filename: 1254179301.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: FW: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:08:21 +0000
> From: jgr-atmospheres@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:54:05 +0000
> To: tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Subject: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
> CC: twistor9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>
> Manuscript Number: 2009JD012960
> Manuscript Title: Comment on "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric
temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter
>
>
> Dear Dr. Foster:
>
> 3 reviews of your above-referenced manuscript are attached below. Reviewer 3 is concerned
with the tone on the writing; while I appreciate the value of "taking the high road", I do
not object to emphatic statements that conclusions are incorrect. Strong language is needed
sometimes when errors must be corrected. Please carefully consider the Reviewers'
recommendations for revisions, make the necessary changes, and respond to me with a
point-by-point response of how you have addressed each concern. In your cover letter,
please include a statement confirming that all authors listed on the manuscript concur with
submission in its revised form.
>
>
>
> The due date for your revised paper is October 28, 2009. If you will be unable to submit
a revised manuscript by this time, please notify my office and arrange for an extension
(maximum two weeks). If we do not hear from you by the revision due date, your manuscript
will be considered as withdrawn.
>
> When you are ready to submit your revision, please use the link below.
>
> *The link below will begin the resubmission of your manuscript, please Do Not click on
the link until you are ready to upload your revised files. Any partial submission that sits
for 3 days without files will be deleted.
>
>
<http://jgr-atmospheres-submit.agu.org/cgi-bin/main.plex?el=A7Bc6EiyL2A2FTof1I3A9OLsgIoKEcG
4DW4K5nQ0wZ>
>
>
> (NOTE: The link above automatically submits your login name and password. If you wish to
share this link with co-authors or colleagues, please be aware that they will have access
to your entire account for this journal.)
>
> **In order to save time upon acceptance, it would be helpful if files in the correct
format are uploaded at revision. Article and table files may be in Word, WordPerfect or
LaTeX and figure files should be separately uploaded as .eps, .tif or pdf files. If you
have color figures, please go to the site below to select a color option. Please put your
color option in the cover letter.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/e_publishing/AGU-publication-fees.pdf
>
> Please see the AGU web site for more information about preparing text and art files
(http://www.agu.org/pubs/inf4aus.shtml). If you have any questions, please contact the
editor�s assistant.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Steve Ghan
> Editor, Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres
>
> -----------Important JGR-Atmospheres Information-------------------------------
>
> Submission, Review and Publication Stages Chart
> Text Preparation and Formatting
> Manuscript Preparation
> Acceptable Electronic File Formats
> Editorial Style Guide for Authors
> Auxiliary Materials (Electronic Supplements)
>
> Artwork Preparation
> Guidelines for Preparing Graphics Files
> Figure FAQ
> Prices for Color in AGU Journals
>
> AGU Copyright Transfer Form
> Manuscript Status Tool (for manuscripts recently accepted)
>
> If you need assistance with file formats and/or color options please e-mail
jgr-atmospheres@xxxxxxxxx.xxx and quote your manuscript number.
>
> If you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to download the forms, it is available, free, on the
internet at: http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Reviewer Comments
>
> Reviewer #1 (Comments):
>
> This paper does an excellent job of showing the errors in the analytical methods used by
McLean et al. and why their conclusions
> about the influence of ENSO on global air temperature is incorrect.
> I have only a couple of suggestions to help clarify their analysis of the methods. First,
a little more explanation of the comment about the time derivative reduced to an additive
constant would help. Second, in the analysis of the artificial time series I think it would
be interesting to show the results of both steps of filtering (running mean and derivative)
as separate time series. This would help the reader understand why the filtering creates
false correlations. The only other suggestion is to find a better adjective than "faulty"
in the abstract to characterize the analysis.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Reviewer #2 (Comments):
>
> I think this comment on McLean et al can be published more or less as is.
>
> I have two comments
>
> First, in the abstract (page 3, line 15), I'm not sure that "inflating" is quite the
right verb - the paper itself does not make the point that the filter constructed by McLean
et al inflates power in the 2-6 year window. Perhaps "isolating" would be a better verb.
>
> Secondly, I think the points that are being made with Figures 4 and 5 could be
strengthened by adding to the right of each plot of a pair of time series, a scatter plot
of the pairs of values available at each time. Such a scatter plot would help to clearly
illustrate the absence (upper panels) or presence (lower panels) of correlation between red
and black values.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Reviewer #3 (Comments):
>
> Accept pending major changes (mainly in style not scientific comment)
>
> The real mystery here, of course, is how the McLean et al. paper ever made it into JGR.
How that happened, I have no idea. I can't see it ever getting published through J Climate.
The analyses in McLean et al. are among the worst I have seen in the climate literature.
The paper is also a poorly guised attack on the integrity of the climate community, and I
guess that is why Foster et al. have taken the energy to contradict its findings.
>
> So the current paper (Foster et al.) should certainly be accepted. Someone needs to
address the science in the McLean et al paper in the peer-reviewed literature. But the
current paper could be - and should be - done better. That's why I am suggesting major
changes before the paper is accepted. All of my suggestions have to do more with the tone
and framing of the current paper, rather than its content.
>
> 1. As noted above, I agree McLean et al is problematic. But as it is written, the current
paper almost stoops to the level of "blog diatribe". The current paper does not read like a
peer-reviewed journal article. The tone is sometimes dramatic and sometimes accusatory. It
is inconsistent with the language one normally encounters in the objectively-based,
peer-reviewed literature. For examples....
> - In the abstract: Do you really need all of these adjectives?...'greatly overstates';
'severely overestimates'; 'faulty analysis'; 'extremely high'.
> - In the introduction... 'Unfortunately, their conclusions are seriously in error..."
strikes me as overly subjective. Better to say: 'We will demonstrate that their conclusions
are strongly dependent on ....' or something like that...
> - Page X-6: 'tell us absolutely nothing'. Surely it's enough to state 'tell us nothing'.
> - Page X-9: 'it is misleading...' That's a strong word. It may be true. But I think we
should rise above such accusations.
>
> Anyway, I'm sure the lead author gets my point. I think the current paper will have a
much greater impact (and can claim the high road) if it is rewritten in a more objective
manner.
>
> 2. Similarly, instead of framing the paper as "Taking down McLean et al.", why not focus
more on interesting aspects of the science, such as the frequency dependence between ENSO
and global-mean temperature (perhaps cross-correlation analysis would be useful); the
importance of not extrapolating results from one timescale to another timescale; or the
lack of trends in ENSO. That way, the current paper contributes to the peer-reviewed
literature while also doing a service by highlighting the problems with McLean et al.
>
> 3. In general, the current paper is sloppy and needs tightening. I don't think the lead
author needs 10 pages of text to make the main points.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________________________________________
Hotmail
Original Filename: 1254230232.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: attacks against Keith
Date: Tue Sep 29 09:17:xxx xxxx xxxx
Mike, Gavin,
As Tim has said Keith is making a good recovery and hopes to be back in soon, gradually
during October and hopefully full time from November.
I talked to him by phone yesterday and sent him and Tom Melvin the threads on CA. As
you're fully aware, trying to figure out what McIntyre has done is going to be difficult.
It would be so much easier if they followed normal procedure and wrote up a comment and
submitted it to a journal. I looked through the threads yesterday trying to make sense of
what he's done. My suspicion is that he's brought in other tree ring series from more
distant sites, some of which may not even be larch. There are two chronologies that have
been used - one called the Polar Urals and one called Yamal. PU is a Schweingruber site
with density as well as ring width. The PU reconstruction is therefore not a chronology,
but a regression based reconstruction from both MXD and TRW. Yamal is just a ring width
series (with lots of sub-fossil material, so much older) from an area some distance (at
least 500km) north of PU. It was developed by Hantemirov and Shiyatov and was poorly
standardized - corridor method. I also don't think McIntyre understands the RCS method even
though he claims to have a program. The ends and the age structure of the samples are
crucial in all this, but I think he just throws series in.
I totally agree that these attacks (for want of a better word) are getting worse.
Comments on the thread are snide in the extreme, with many saying they see no need to
submit the results to a journal. They have proved Keith has manipulated the data, so job
done.
Hadn't thought of Senate debates. I'd put this down to the build up to Copenhagen,
which is sort of the same.
[1]http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/a-look-at-the-thompson-et-al-paper-hi-tech-wiggle-
matching-and-removal-of-natural-variables/
is a complete reworking of Dave Thompson's paper which is in press in J. Climate
(online). Looked at this, but they have made some wrong assumptions, but someone has put a
lot of work into it.
[2]http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/ooops-dutch-meteorological-institute-caught-in-wea
ther-station-siting-failure-moved-station-and-told-nobody/
This one is a complete red herring - nothing wrong with De Bilt measurements. This is what
it is about according to someone at KNMI
The issue you refer to is causing a lot of noise in the Netherlands (even MP's asking
questions to the minister). It seems this is not at all about the observational series
(nothing strange is going on), but more related to the "Law on KNMI" and the division of
tasks between commercial providers and KNMI to be discussed by parliament soon.
Cheers
Phil
At 08:46 29/09/2009, Tim Osborn wrote:
Hi Mike and Gavin,
thanks for your emails re McIntyre, Yamal and Keith.
I'll pass on your best wishes for his recovery when I next speak to Keith. He's been
off almost 4 months now and won't be back for at least another month (barring a couple
of lectures that he's keen to do in October as part of a gradual return). Hopefully
he'll be properly back in November.
Regarding Yamal, I'm afraid I know very little about the whole thing -- other than that
I am 100% confident that "The tree ring data was hand-picked to get the desired result"
is complete crap. Having one's integrity questioned like this must make your blood boil
(as I'm sure you know, with both of you having been the target of numerous such
attacks). Though it would be nice to shield Keith from this during his recovery, I
think Keith will already have heard about this because he had recently been asked to
look at CA in relation to the Kaufman threads (Keith was a co-author on that and Darrell
had asked Keith to help with a response to the criticisms).
Apart from Keith, I think Tom Melvin here is the only person who could shed light on the
McIntyre criticisms of Yamal. But he can be a rather loose cannon and shouldn't be
directly contacted about this (also he wasn't involved in the Yamal chronology being
discussed, though he has been involved in a regional reconstruction that we've recently
been working towards that uses these -- and more -- data).
Perhaps Phil and I should talk with Tom and also see if Keith is already considering a
response.
Off to lecture for a couple of hours now...
Cheers
Tim
Dr Timothy J Osborn, Academic Fellow
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
e-mail: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
web: [3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
sunclock: [4]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/a-look-at-the-thompson-et-al-paper-hi-tech-wiggle-matching-and-removal-of-natural-variables/
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/24/ooops-dutch-meteorological-institute-caught-in-weather-station-siting-failure-moved-station-and-told-nobody/
3. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
4. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm
Original Filename: 1254232855.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: FW: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
Date: Tue Sep 29 10:00:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: Mike Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Grant, Kevin,
Agree on the responses. It does just seem a case of removing a number of the
adjectives. It is important to keep the moral high ground in this, if just to show how a
comment on a paper should be written and submitted to the same journal that had the poor
paper in the first instance. Might be worth reiterating this if any of us get called when
the comment does come out. There does seem a trend these days to slam a paper on blogs with
no attempt to submit a comment to a journal.
Agree on the running mean/derivative issue - the spectral diagram is better.
Scatter plots aren't that useful unless. They's might help with the (a) parts, but it's
obvious from the time series plots and the r-squareds are so different!
Finally - there was this comment via Jim S from Neville Nicholls. I vaguely recall Angell
and Korshover papers
from that time. The attached refers to some of them - also found Newell and Weare. This
isn't the first, but it might be worth adding. Attached this one from Science as well.
Neville Nicholls wrote:
Hi JIm.
I hop things are going well with you.
Thanks for being part of this robust response to the latest silliness. You have
certainly gathered an illustrious group of co-authors.
I am disappointed that you didnt cite the very early (1970s) work by Newell and Weare,
and by Angell and Korshover. I think you should squeeze these in, to demonstrate that
the climate community did not have to wait for McLean et al to understand the influence
of ENSO on global temperatures. In fact, our colleagues in the 1970s understood this,
and demonstrated it much more scientifically than does the McLean et al paper.
Cheers,
Neville
Cheers
Phil
At 21:45 28/09/2009, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
Hi all
About time. Incidentally i gave a copy to Mike McPhaden and discussed it with him last
week when we were together at the OceanObs'09 conference. Mike is President of AGU.
Basically this is an acceptance with a couple of suggestions for extras, and some
suggestions for toning down the rhetoric. I had already tried that a bit. My reaction
is that the main thing is to expedite this. That means no extras unless it really makes
sense. And removal of a few unnecessary words like "absolutely".
In the abstract, we have a number of such adjectives that could be removed: I agree
with Rev 3 in this.
"greatly overstates" could be just "overstates" as it is reinforced better later.
"severely overestimates" could be just "overestimates"
"faulty analysis" maybe "flawed analysis"?
"extremely high" maybe "very high" or "unduly high"
I would leave last sentence alone though as the main comment.
A few more comments embedded below.
Grant Foster wrote:
> From: [1]jgr-atmospheres@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:54:05 +0000
> To: [2]tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> Subject: 2009JD012960 (Editor - Steve Ghan):Decision Letter
> CC: [3]twistor9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
>
> Manuscript Number: 2009JD012960
> Manuscript Title: Comment on "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric
temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Reviewer Comments
>
> Reviewer #1 (Comments):
>
> This paper does an excellent job of showing the errors in the analytical methods used
by McLean et al. and why their conclusions
> about the influence of ENSO on global air temperature is incorrect.
> I have only a couple of suggestions to help clarify their analysis of the methods.
First, a little more explanation of the comment about the time derivative reduced to an
additive constant would help. Second, in the analysis of the artificial time series I
think it would be interesting to show the results of both steps of filtering (running
mean and derivative) as separate time series. This would help the reader understand why
the filtering creates false correlations. The only other suggestion is to find a better
adjective than "faulty" in the abstract to characterize the analysis.
>
It is not so easy to see the result from the derivative owing to the phase shift. The
spectrum actually does a better job. I would address this comment in this way and
change "faulty".
>
> Reviewer #2 (Comments):
>
> I think this comment on McLean et al can be published more or less as is.
>
> I have two comments
>
> First, in the abstract (page 3, line 15), I'm not sure that "inflating" is quite the
right verb - the paper itself does not make the point that the filter constructed by
McLean et al inflates power in the 2-6 year window. Perhaps "isolating" would be a
better verb.
Yes it should not be in abstract if not in text. Need to point out that the response
function in Fig. 1 is greater than unity and does "inflate". So adjust the text.
>
> Secondly, I think the points that are being made with Figures 4 and 5 could be
strengthened by adding to the right of each plot of a pair of time series, a scatter
plot of the pairs of values available at each time. Such a scatter plot would help to
clearly illustrate the absence (upper panels) or presence (lower panels) of correlation
between red and black values.
I don't think this helps. There is nothing to be gained from a scatter plot that a
correlation or regression value does not summarize.
>
>
> Reviewer #3 (Comments):
>
> Accept pending major changes (mainly in style not scientific comment)
>
> The real mystery here, of course, is how the McLean et al. paper ever made it into
JGR. How that happened, I have no idea. I can't see it ever getting published through J
Climate. The analyses in McLean et al. are among the worst I have seen in the climate
literature. The paper is also a poorly guised attack on the integrity of the climate
community, and I guess that is why Foster et al. have taken the energy to contradict its
findings.
>
> So the current paper (Foster et al.) should certainly be accepted. Someone needs to
address the science in the McLean et al paper in the peer-reviewed literature. But the
current paper could be - and should be - done better. That's why I am suggesting major
changes before the paper is accepted. All of my suggestions have to do more with the
tone and framing of the current paper, rather than its content.
>
> 1. As noted above, I agree McLean et al is problematic. But as it is written, the
current paper almost stoops to the level of "blog diatribe". The current paper does not
read like a peer-reviewed journal article. The tone is sometimes dramatic and sometimes
accusatory. It is inconsistent with the language one normally encounters in the
objectively-based, peer-reviewed literature. For examples....
> - In the abstract: Do you really need all of these adjectives?...'greatly overstates';
'severely overestimates'; 'faulty analysis'; 'extremely high'.
Agree, see above
> - In the introduction... 'Unfortunately, their conclusions are seriously in error..."
strikes me as overly subjective. Better to say: 'We will demonstrate that their
conclusions are strongly dependent on ....' or something like that...
Don't go that far. Could drop "seriously" but they are "in error"
> - Page X-6: 'tell us absolutely nothing'. Surely it's enough to state 'tell us
nothing'.
agree
> - Page X-9: 'it is misleading...' That's a strong word. It may be true. But I think we
should rise above such accusations.
misleading is OK. I did a search (not sure I have latest) and found "grossly
misleading" and the "grossly" could be removed.
>
> Anyway, I'm sure the lead author gets my point. I think the current paper will have a
much greater impact (and can claim the high road) if it is rewritten in a more objective
manner.
>
> 2. Similarly, instead of framing the paper as "Taking down McLean et al.", why not
focus more on interesting aspects of the science, such as the frequency dependence
between ENSO and global-mean temperature (perhaps cross-correlation analysis would be
useful); the importance of not extrapolating results from one timescale to another
timescale; or the lack of trends in ENSO. That way, the current paper contributes to the
peer-reviewed literature while also doing a service by highlighting the problems with
McLean et al.
I think I tried to emphasize that this should be a teaching moment. Even more important
given the time lapse.
>
> 3. In general, the current paper is sloppy and needs tightening. I don't think the
lead author needs 10 pages of text to make the main points.
>
>
So over to you to generate the next draft.
Thanks
Kevin
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth e-mail: [4]trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Climate Analysis Section, [5]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html
NCAR
P. O. Box 3000, (3xxx xxxx xxxx
Boulder, CO 80xxx xxxx xxxx (3xxx xxxx xxxx(fax)
Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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3. mailto:twistor9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
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Original Filename: 1254235516.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: attacks against Keith
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:45:xxx xxxx xxxx
Cc: "gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx" <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
<x-flowed>
Thanks for the clarification Tim, doesn't change the fact the the
attack was inappropriate and unfair of course, but perhaps not as
despicable as at first might appear,
M
--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
On Sep 29, 2009, at 9:50 AM, Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
> At 14:30 29/09/2009, Gavin Schmidt wrote:
>> The fact is that they launched an assault on Keith knowing full
>> well he isn't in a position to respond. This is despicable.
>
> Gavin,
>
> be careful here, I think it more likely that McIntye only learned of
> Keith's absence after he started posting about Yamal and the real
> reason for the timing of all this is that we made the Yamal tree-
> core measurements available about 2-3 weeks ago (in fact Keith had
> thought they had been made available before he fell ill, and only
> realised in early September that they weren't -- and asked for that
> to be rectified).
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr Timothy J Osborn, Academic Fellow
> Climatic Research Unit
> School of Environmental Sciences
> University of East Anglia
> Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
>
> e-mail: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
> phone: xxx xxxx xxxx
> fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
> web: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/
> sunclock: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm
>
>
</x-flowed>
Original Filename: 1254258663.txt | Return to the index page | Permalink | Earlier Emails | Later Emails
From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Andrew Revkin <anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: mcintyre's latest....
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:11:xxx xxxx xxxx
p.s. Tim Osborn ([1]t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx) is probably the best person to contact for further
details, in Keith's absence,
mike
On Sep 29, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Michael Mann wrote:
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: xxx xxxx xxxxMob: xxx xxxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxxx xxxx
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/revkin
--
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [3]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
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: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (8xxx xxxx xxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [6]mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16xxx xxxx xxxx
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
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