Dear Jim,
Thanks for your continued interest and help w/ all this. It's nice to know that our friends
down under are doing their best to fight the misinformation. It is true that the skeptics
twist the truth clockwise rather than counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?
There was indeed a lot of activity last week. Hans Von Storch's resignation as chief editor
of CR, which I think took a lot of guts, couldn't have come at a better time. It was on the
night before before the notorious "James Inhofe", Chair of the Senate "Environment and
Public Works Committee" attempted to provide a public stage for Willie Soon and David
Legates to peddle their garbage (the Soon & Baliunas junk of course, but also the usual
myths about the satellite record, 1940s-1970s cooling, "co2 is good for us" and "but water
vapor is the primary greenhouse gas!").
Fortunately, these two are clowns, neither remotely as sharp as Lindzen or as slick as
Michaels, and it wasn't too difficult to deal with them. Suffice it to say, the event did
*not* go the way Inhofe and the republicans had hoped. The democrats, conveniently, had
received word of Hans' resignation, but the republicans and Soon/Legates had not. So when,
quite fittingly, Jim Jeffords (you may remember--he's the U.S. senator who was in the news
a couple years ago for tilting the balance of power back to the democrats when he left the
republican party in protest) hit them with this news at the hearing, they were caught
completely off guard. The "Wall Street Journal" article you cited was icing on the cake.
Inhofe, who rails against the liberal media, will have a difficult time doing so against
the WSJ!
Also of interest to you (attached) might be the op-ed that Ray Bradley, Phil, and I have
written and submitted to the "Seattle News Tribune" in response to an op-ed by Baliunas
(also attached) that some industry group has been sending around to various papers over the
last week. Only two (Providence Journal and Seattle NT) have thusfar bitten...
There is a rumour that Harvard may have had enough w/ their name being dragged through the
mud by the activities of Baliunas and Soon, and that "something is up". Baliunas and Soon,
as alluded to in the WSJ article, are now no longer talking to the media. Will keep you
posted on that...
mike
At 03:58 PM 8/4/2003 +1200, Jim Salinger wrote:
Dear Mike et al
I also share Neville's thanks to you all for the reasoned and evaluated responses over
the last few months.  They have been good, and separated out 'academic standards'
from 'academic freedom', which we have to be careful not to abuse.
I also note the following, come through over the weekend from the Wall Street Journal
(below) and would also compliment those of you who, with Hans Von Storch resigned
your editorships when information that should be published was clearly supressed.
If you have further information that you feel free to share on last week's events then
we
in New Zealand would appreciate hearing it, as we have been extremely concerned
about academic standards in the reviewing of articles from New Zealand sources.
Again thanks to all on your stands.
Best regards
Jim
>>>>  July 31, 2003
>>>>  DEBATING GLOBAL WARMING
>>>>
>>>>  Global Warming Skeptics
>>>>  Are Facing Storm Clouds
>>>>
>>>>  By ANTONIO REGALADO
>>>>  Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>>>>
>>>>  A big flap at a little scientific journal is raising questions about
>>>>  a study that has been embraced by conservative politicians for its
>>>>  rejection of widely held global-warming theories.
>>>>
>>>>  The study, by two astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
>>>>  Astrophysics, says the 20th century wasn't unusually warm compared
>>>>  with earlier periods and contradicts evidence indicating man-made
>>>>  "greenhouse" gases are causing temperatures to rise.
>>>>
>>>>  Since being published last January in Climate Research, the paper has
>>>>  been widely promoted by Washington think tanks and cited by the White
>>>>  House in revisions made to a recent Environmental Protection Agency
>>>>  report. At the same time, it has drawn stinging rebukes from other
>>>>  climate scientists.
>>>>
>>>>  This week, three editors of Climate Research resigned in protest over
>>>>  the journal's handling of the review process that approved the study;
>>>>  among them is Hans von Storch, the journal's recently appointed
>>>>  editor in chief. "It was flawed and it shouldn't have been
>>>>  published," he said.
>>>>
>>>>  Dr. von Storch's resignation was publicly disclosed Tuesday by Sen.
>>>>  James Jeffords (I., Vt.), a critic of the administration's
>>>>  environmental policies, during a hearing of the Senate Environment
>>>>  and Public Works Committee called by its chairman, Sen. James Inhofe
>>>>  (R., Okla.).
>>>>
>>>>  The debate over global warming centers on the extent to which gases
>>>>  released from the burning of fossil fuels -- mainly carbon dioxide --
>>>>  are trapping the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere, creating a
>>>>  greenhouse effect. The political fight has intensified as the Senate
>>>>  votes on a major energy bill. Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and
>>>>  Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) planned to introduce an amendment this
>>>>  week that would cap carbon-dioxide emissions at 2000 levels starting
>>>>  in 2010 for select industries. The Bush administration is opposed to
>>>>  imposing caps, and the measure isn't expected to become law.
>>>>
>>>>  The Harvard study has become part of skeptics' arguments. Mr. Inhofe,
>>>>  who is leading the opposition to the emissions measures, cited the
>>>>  research in a speech on the Senate floor Monday in which he said,
>>>>  "the claim that global warming is caused by man-made emissions is
>>>>  simply untrue and not based on sound science."
>>>>
>>>>  The paper was authored by astronomers Willie Soon and Sallie
>>>>  Baliunas, and looked at studies of tree rings and other indicators of
>>>>  past climate. Their basic conclusion: The 20th century wasn't the
>>>>  warmest century of the past 1,000 years. They concluded temperatures
>>>>  may have been higher during the "Medieval Warm Period," the time
>>>>  during which the Norse settled Greenland.
>>>>
>>>>  Dr. Soon couldn't be reached and Dr. Baliunas declined comment. In
>>>>  his testimony before Mr. Inhofe's committee, Dr. Soon reiterated the
>>>>  findings of his study, which was partly funded by the American
>>>>  Petroleum Institute.
>>>>
>>>>  Dr. Soon's findings contradict widely cited research by another
>>>>  scientist, Michael E. Mann of the University of Virginia. Dr. Mann's
>>>>  reconstruction of global temperatures shows a distinct pattern shaped
>>  >> like a hockey stick: Temperatures stayed level for centuries, with a
>>>>  sudden upturn during recent decades.
>>>>
>>>>  A reference to Dr. Soon's paper previously found its way into
>>>>  revisions suggested by the White House to an EPA report on
>>>>  environmental quality. According to an internal EPA memorandum
>>>>  disclosed in June, agency scientists were concerned the version
>>>>  containing the White House edits "no longer accurately represents
>>>>  scientific consensus on climate change." Dr. Mann's data showing the
>>>>  hockey-stick temperature curve was deleted. In its place,
>>>>  administration officials added a reference to Dr. Soon's paper, which
>>>>  the EPA memo called "a limited analysis that supports the
>>>>  administration's favored message."
>>>>
>>>>  The EPA says the memo appears to be an internal e-mail between
>>>>  staffers but isn't an "official" document. A spokesman at the White
>>>>  House's Council on Environmental Quality says the addition of the
>>>>  citation to Dr. Soon's paper to the draft report was suggested during
>>>>  an interagency review process overseen by the White House.
>>>>
>>>>  Dr. Mann and 13 colleagues published a critique of Dr. Soon's paper
>>>>  in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, this month.
>>>>  They said the Harvard team's methods were flawed and their results
>>>>  "inconsistent with the preponderance of scientific evidence."
>>>>
>>>>  Then, last week Dr. von Storch was contacted by Sen. Jeffords's
>>>>  staff, which was looking into the paper in preparation for Tuesday's
>>>>  hearing, where Dr. Soon and Dr. Mann were scheduled to appear. After
>>>>  hearing from Sen. Jeffords, Dr. von Storch says he decided to speed
>>>>  an editorial into print criticizing publication of the paper.
>>>>
>>>>  But publisher Otto Kinne blocked the move, saying that while he
>>>>  favored publication of the editorial, Dr. von Storch's proposals were
>>>>  still opposed by some of the other editors. "I asked Hans not to rush
>>>>  the editorial," Mr. Kinne said in an e-mail.
>>>>
>>>>  That is when Dr. von Storch resigned, followed by two other editors.
>>>>
>>>>  --John J. Fialka contributed to this article.
On 30 Jul 2003 at 8:26, Neville Nicholls wrote:
> Dear Mike et al:
>
> Despite my reluctance to get involved in preparing a public response
> to the SB03 papers, and my feeling that we would be better off
> ignoring it, I have to record my appreciation of the job you have done
> in preparing the EOS 8 July commentary. I thought it was an excellent,
> scientific, calm evaluation of SB03. Fortuitously, it arrived the same
> day I had to prepare a brief about SB03 for my political masters. It
> was very helpful to have your commentary to include in this brief.
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Neville Nicholls
> Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre
> PO Box 1289K, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, 3001
> Street address: 13th floor, 150 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA,
> 3000 Phone: +61 3 9669 4407; Fax: +61 3 9669 4660
>
********************************************
Dr Jim Salinger, CRSNZ          Tel:  + 64 9 375 2053
NIWA                                    Fax: + 64 9 375 2051
P O Box 109 695, (269 Khyber Pass Road)   e-mail: j.salinger@niwa.co.nz
Newmarket, Auckland,
New Zealand
****************************************************************************************
***
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[1]
Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\SeattleNewsTribune-oped-final.doc" Attachment
Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\BaliunasProvidenceJournal25Jul03.pdf"
References
1.


Simon & Philip,
here's some thoughts on uncertainty...
At 10:42 04/08/2003, Simon Tett wrote:
>1) Calibration uncertainty -- there is some uncertainty in the
>relationship between proxy and temperature.
>2) Residual noise -- the proxyies do not capture large-scale temperature
>variability perfectly.
>3) Internal-climate variability in "real" life -- there is some chaotic
>variability in the real climate system
>4) Internal-climate variability in the model -- ditto!
>
>3) & 4) I suggest we estimate from HadCM3 -- model var agrees well with
>paleo var so can't be too far wrong!
Yes, I'm happy that we use (3) and (4) from the model.  If you use a short
baseline to take the anomalies from, then the internal variability comes in
twice in each case, both in comparing the baseline mean and the
anomaly.  We can minimise this by using a long baseline.
>1) & 2) are, to some extent related, as calibration is estimate by
>regression -- thus minimising residual var (2). Nicest thing to do would
>be to estimate residual from indep. data but I don't think there is enough.....
The uncertainties that we've published with our regional and
quasi-hemispheric reconstructions attempt to take both (1) and (2) in
account already.  Thus I use the standard errors on the two regression
coefficients (for the linear regression of the sub-continental regions) and
the standard errors on all multiple regression coefficients (for the
quasi-Northern Hemisphere series).  And then I incorporate the variance of
the calibration residuals too (i.e., item (2)), modelled as first-order
autoregressive terms.  The appendix of the Briffa part 1 paper (page
755-757 is the appendix) in the Holocene special issue paper gives an
explanation of this.  Others quite often ignore (1) and just use the
residuals to quantify reconstruction error, but (1) can be important
especially for big anomalies (because the regression slope error is
multiplied by the predicted anomaly).  (1) can be difficult to quantify, of
course, using some multi-variate techniques like Mann and Luterbacher use.
The regression standard errors (1) are of course computed from the
calibration period.  Our published errors also use the residual variance
(2) computed from this calibration period.  It is possible to compute (2)
from independent data, but as you say we are limited by data.  AND I think
that the residual variance from independent data would also incorporate
some or all of error (1) (because that would contribute to differences
between reconstruction and observation).  I think it is better to keep the
two terms separate and explicitly compute both, especially as their
relative magnitudes can depend upon time scale (i.e., time averaging the data).
Am I right in thinking that the error in the *observed* record would, if
taken into account, result in *reduced* reconstruction errors, because the
residual variance (2) would not all be assumed to be reconstruction error -
some would be observation error?  But I suppose that the regression
coefficient errors (1) would get larger to compensate?  Anyway, we don't
currently consider observed errors.
Cheers
Tim
Dr Timothy J Osborn
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
Norwich  NR4 7TJ, UK
e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
phone:    +44 1603 592089
fax:      +44 1603 507784
web:      ~timo/
sunclock: ~timo/sunclock.htm


dear all,
i think we all have seen [if not commented on] the devastating heat
wave presently in europe - gives us a feeling on truly global warming.
WWF has assured some money - a few thousand EUROS what is not much to
be honest but at least a start - to ask an economist with climate policy
understanding to assess in a short but fleshy paper [max 10 pages] the
economic costs of these weather extremes in europe. This can be put in
context with the mitigation costs of ambitious climate policies which
are often quoted as a barrier to clean technologies unfortunately. I
think, we as an NGO working on climate policy need such a document
pretty soon for the public and for informed decision makers in order to
get a) a debate started and b) in order to get into the media the
context between climate extremes/desasters/costs and finally the link
between weather extremes and energy - just the solutions parts what
still is not communicated at all.
In short, can you advise us on a competent author who is readily
available [can be one of you, of course], to bring together the
conventionally accessible costs of reduced transport loads on rivers, in
railway networks, forest fires, disruption of water supply and
irrigation, closure of hydro power and even nuclear in some locations,
health costs, agricultural failures [if accessible] etc
etcetc...resulting from the heat wave?
Of course, i could not sent this e-mail to all competent sceintists, so
fell free to share please and come back to me - at best ASAP
many regards
stephan singer
Stephan Singer
Head of European Climate and Energy Policy Unit
WWF, the conservation organization
E-mail: ssinger@wwfepo.org
*************************************************
www.panda.org/epo - Stay up-to-date with WWF's policy work in the
capital of Europe
www.passport.panda.org - take action on global conservation issues -
have you got your Passport yet?
*************************************************
WWF European Policy Office
36 avenue de Tervuren Box 12
1040 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32-2-743-8817
Fax: +32-2-743-8819


Andre,
I have been closely involved in the CR fiasco. I have had papers that I
refereed (and soundly rejected), under De Freitas's editorship, appear
later in the journal -- without me seeing any response from the authors.
As I have said before to others, his strategy is first to use mainly
referees that are in the anti-greenhouse community, and second, if a
paper is rejected, to ignore that review and seek another more
'sympathic' reviewer. In the second case he can then (with enough
reviews) claim that the honest review was an outlier.
I agree that an ethics committee is needed and I would be happy to serve
on such a committee. It would have to have endorsement by international
societies, like Roy. Soc., US Nat. Acad., Acad. Europ., plus RMS, AMS,
AGU, etc.
Jim Titus mentioned to me that in the legal profession here people are
disbarred for behavior like that of De Freitas (and even John Christy --
although this is a more subtle case). We cannot do that of course, but
we can alert the community of honest scientists to such behavior and
formally discredit these people.
The Danish Acad. did something like this recently, but were not entirely
successful.
In the meantime, I urge people to dissociate themselves from Climate
Research. The residual 'editorial' (a word I use almost tongue in cheek)
board is looking like a rogues' gallery of skeptics. Those remaining who
are credible scientists should resign.
Tom.
+++++++++++++++++
André Berger wrote:
> Dear Stefan,
> Dear Mike,
> Dear Collegues,
>
> I admire the courage of Stefan and of all other colleagues who are
> willing to answer these highly controversed papers (garbage as Marty
> said). I am personally tired of analysing these papers, having quit
> doing this for the Ministry and European Commission some 5 years ago.
>
> Nevertheless, I am also sad when I see these papers, mostly because they
> succeeded to be published. So not only we have to teach their authors
> the Science of climate but also the reviewers and/or the
> editors/publishers who have accepted them. This is a huge effort. I,
> personally, would like to see an International Committee of Ethics (or
> something like this) in Geo-Sciences be created as it is the case for
> Medical Sciences and Biotechnology.
>
> I have been told that AMS has such a Committee who is a kind of super
> peer-review telling what is wrong in some declarations, papers, books
> ....  Is anybody willing to participate in an attempt to create such a
> Committee within AGU-EGU-IUGG ... ?
>
> In the meantime, I am please to send you here attached an email by R.L.
> Park on Soon, Baliunas, Seitz and others.
>
> Best Wishes and Regards,
>
> André BERGER
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 8 Aug 03 Washington, DC
> 2. POLITICAL CLIMATE: WHAT'S RIGHT FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
> One of the purported abuses cited in the minority staff report
> involved the insertion into an EPA report of a reference to a
> paper by Soon and Baliunas that denies globl warming (WN 1 Aug
> 03). To appreciate its significance, we need to go back to March
> of 1998. We all got a petition card in the mail urging the
> government to reject the Kyoto accord(WN 13 Mar 98). The cover
> letter was signed by "Frederick Seitz, Past President, National
> Academy of Sciences." Enclosed was what seemed to be a reprint
> of a journal article, in the style and font of Proceedings of the
> NAS. But it had not been published in PNAS, or anywhere else. The
> reprint was a fake. Two of the four authors of this non-article
> were Soon and Baliunas. The other authors, both named Robinson,
> were from the tiny Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in
> Cave Junction, OR. The article claimed that the environmental
> effects of increased CO2 are all beneficial. There was also a
> copy of Wall Street Journal op-ed by the Robinsons (father and
> son) that described increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as
> "a wonderful and unexpected gift of the industrial revolution."
> There was no indication of who had paid for the mailing. It was
> a dark episode in the annals of scientific discourse.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 10:59 4/08/2003 -0400, Mike MacCracken wrote:
>
>> You all might want to get in on response to this paper.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> ----------
>> From: Stefan Rahmstorf
>> Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 16:02:36 +0200
>> To: "Michael E. Mann"
>> Cc: Raymond Bradley
, Malcolm Hughes
>>
, Phil Jones
, Kevin
>> Trenberth
>>
, Tom Crowley
, Tom Wigley
>>
, Scott Rutherford
, Caspar
>> Ammann
>>
, Keith Briffa
, Tim Osborn
>>
, Michael Oppenheimer
, Steve
>> Schneider
, Gabi Hegerl
, Mike
>> MacCracken
>>
, Ellen Mosley-Thompson
, Eric
>> Steig
, jmahlman@ucar.edu,
>> wuebbles@atmos.uiuc.edu, jto@u.arizona.edu, stocker@climate.unibe.ch, Urs
>> Neu
, Jürg Beer
>> Subject: Shaviv & Veizer in GSA Today
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> the Soon&Baliunas paper has given political lobbyists a field day in
>> their attempts to confuse the public and decision-makers about the state
>> of global warming science. It is quite interesting how a lobby
>> organisation like the Marshall Institute manages to get a paper like
>> that into the peer-reviewed literature with the help of a sympathetic
>> editor, against reviewer concerns, and then capitalise on that right
>> away in Senate hearings and the media. There clearly is a wider and
>> well-funded strategy behind such activities, which has something to do
>> with why the US has backed out of the Kyoto protocol. These same US
>> organisations are also active here in Europe trying to influence policy,
>> albeit so far with less success.
>>
>> In the face of such sophisticated lobbying we scientists should not be
>> too naive. Although simply doing good science remains our main job, I
>> think at some points we need to intervene in the public debate and try
>> to clarify what is science and what is just political lobbying. In
>> particular, I feel that it is important to not let bad, politically
>> motivated science stand unchallenged in the peer-reviewed literature -
>> it is too easy to just shrug and ignore an obviously bad paper. Hence I
>> greatly appreciate that Mike and his co-authors responded in Eos to the
>> errors in the Soon&Baliunas paper.
>>
>> I feel another recent paper may require a similar scientific response,
>> the one by Shaviv&Veizer (attached). It derives a supposed upper limit
>> for the CO2-effect on climate (i.e., 0.5 C warming for CO2 doubling),
>> based on paleoclimatic data on the multi-million-year time scale. This
>> paper got big media coverage here in Germany and I guess it is set to
>> become a climate skeptics classic: the spin is that GCMs show a large
>> CO2 sensitivity, but climate history proves it is really very small.
>> Talking to various colleagues, everyone seems to agree that most of this
>> paper is wrong, starting from the data themselves down to the
>> methodology of extracting the CO2 effect.
>>
>> I think it would be a good idea to get a group of people together to
>> respond to this paper (in GSA today). My expertise is good for part of
>> this and I'd be willing to contribute. My questions to you are:
>> 1. Does anyone know of any other plans to respond to this paper?
>> 2. Would anyone like to be part of writing a response?
>> 3. Do you know people who may have the right expertise? Then please
>> forward them this mail.
>>
>> Best regards, Stefan
>>
>> --
>> Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf
>> Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
>> For contact details, reprints, movies & general infos see:
>> ~stefan
>>
>>
> *************************************************************************
> Prof. A. BERGER
> Université catholique de Louvain
> Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître
> 2 Chemin du Cyclotron
> B-1348  LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE
> BELGIUM
> Tel. +32-10-47 33 03
> Fax +32-10-47 47 22
> E_mail: berger@astr.ucl.ac.be
>
> *************************************************************************
>


Tom,
I once met Soon at a meeting organised by the ESA in Tenerife.  I think he gave a talk
-
but only think, so it wasn't memorable in any way. As you say they don't come to the
regular meetings like EGU/S, AGU, AMS etc.  I only went to Tenerife as the organisers paid
for me to go.
Citation ratings vary (there are several different scales/indicators as well) a lot
from year to year for most journals. I've never figured out how the counting is done wrt
the highly cited lists that Tom. W., Kevin and I are on.  Do only first authorships count
for
example?  Even with a common name like mine people still get it wrong and mistakes
persist.
Surprisingly Jim Hansen doesn't make the above list ([1] but
then
he normally drops his E.
There are few more journals (QSR, Climate Change, IJC, AAR to give a few) where
paleo papers also appear.
Cheers
Phil
At 10:43 13/08/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
I checked this out prior to my senate hearing. Their science citations in the climate
literature are poor, as one would hope and expect.
Interestingly, they both drop their second initials when publishing in the climate
literature so that their names don't turn in up in ISI if you do a search on  their
publications in the  astronomy literature (which use the full initials)--apparently,
they don't want their astronomy colleagues to be aware that they're moonlighting as
supposed climatologists...
Their numbers are better in the astronomy literature, though Soon's numbers even here
are mediocre.
Baliunas had some well-cited publications more than a decade ago. This is her work on
the use of sun-like stars as a model for solar variability, etc., which is well
referenced in the astrophysics community. However, most of these appear to be her Ph.D.
work, and appear to have been published w/ her Ph.D adviser.
Not much evidence however that she has made any useful, independent contribution since
then. There are some additional  papers she's published on time series analysis of solar
signals--looks like the kind of stuff you might expect to see from a graduate student
first-year research project....
In my opinion, its would be a mistake to evaluate these  on their citations numbers in
astronomy. We should focus on their numbers in the climate literature, which are the
only ones relevant when discussing the issue of how their work on climate is received by
their fellow scientists,
mike
At 08:15 AM 8/13/2003 -0600, Tom Wigley wrote:
Might be interesting to see how frequently Soon and Baliunas, individually, are cited
(as astronomers). Are they any good in their own fields?
Perhaps we could start referring to them as astrologers (excusable as ... 'oops, just a
typo')
Tom.
++++++++++++++++
Tom Crowley wrote:
Hi there,
we need some data on Soon and Baliunas.  one of my concerns is that they only publish in
low impact journals and completely bypass the normal give and take of presentations at
open scientific meetings (for example, I think I have probably heard 100 presentations
overall from the people on this mailing list).
it is therefore very important to inquire for the sake or our exchanges with
reporters/legislators etc as to how often any of you may have heard Soon or Baliunas
give a talk in an open meeting, where they could defend their analyses.
please respond to me as to whether you have heard either of them present something on
their paleo-analyses (I think I heard Baliunas speak once on her solar-type star work,
but that doesn't count).
I will let you know the results of the poll so that we may all be on the same grounds
with respect to the data and reporting such information to press inquiries/legislators
etc.
further fyi I list below the journal impact for six geophysical/climate/paleoclimate
journals:
Paleoceanography  3.821
J. Climate   3.250
J. Geophysical Res. (Climate)  2.245
Geophysical Research Letters  2.150
The Holocene  1.852
Climate Research  1.016
Science and Nature are much higher (26-30)  but there citation numbers are I believe
inflated with respect to our field because their citation ranking also includes many
very widely cited biology publications.
hope to hear from  you soon, Tom
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[2]
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1.
2.


Thanks Tom,
I agree--the issue is not completely settled, and thanks for the reference (any possibility
you can send me a reprint?). The point here of course is that we are talking a potential
effect, w/ as you say, at best a weak signal--hardly the dominating overprint that is
argued by the Idso brothers! (by the way, weren't they a circus act at one point??),
mike
At 12:48 PM 8/22/2003 -0600, Tom Wigley wrote:
Mike,
Thanks for your clarifications.
With regard to the CO2 fertilization effect on tree ring width, I wrote a paper a number
of years ago pointing out that there were signal-to-noise problems in identifying and
quantifying such factors.
Wigley, T.M.L., Jones, P.D. and Briffa, K.R., 1987:  Detecting the effects of acidic
deposition and CO2-fertilization on tree growth.  (In) Methods of Dendrochronology.
Vol. 1, Proceedings of the Task Force Meeting on Methodology of Dendrochronology:
Kraków, Poland, 26 June 1986, (eds. L. Kairiukstis, Z. Bednarz and E. Feliksik),
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Agricultural Academy of Kraków,
Polish Academy of Science, WOSI Wspólna Sprawa 38/37 no. 20, 239253.
1988.
While I am confident that you are correct, and that this is not a crucial factor, I
think one should be careful about denying its existence. There are, furthermore,
additional obfuscating factors that make the effects of CO2 fertilization on ring widths
hard to identify.
Perhaps more important is the fact that many tree ring based reconstructions use density
data, and the jury is still out on whether more CO2 increases or decreases density.
Tom.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Michael E. Mann wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
Several you have inquired about the below claims by the notorious "Idso brothers" which
relates to the paper by Mann and Jones that appeared in GRL a couple weeks ago.
Of course, its the usual disinformation we've come to expect from these folks, but a few
details on why:
1) The supposed "Co2 fertilization" argument is a ruse. The only evidence that such an
effect might actually play some role in tree-growth trends has been found in high
elevation sites in western North America (consult Malcolm Hughes for more details). As
in Mann et al '99 (GRL), any such effect, to the extent it might exist, has been removed
from the relevant series used in the latest (Mann and Jones) paper through the removal
of anomalous differences between low-elevation and high-elevation western North American
temperature trends during the post 1800 period, prior to use of the data in climate
reconstruction.
2) We haven't in the past extended the proxy reconstruction beyond 1980 because many of
the proxy data drop out. However, the repeated claim by the contrarians that post-1980
proxy data don't show the warming evident in the instrumental record has finally
prompted me  to go ahead and perform an additional analysis in which the
proxy-reconstruction is extended forward as recently as at all possible (to 1995, for
which 3 out of 8 of the NH records are available, and 1 of the 5 SH records are
available). The SH and GLB reconstructions are thus obviously tenuous at best, but they
do address, to the extent at all possible, the issue as to whether or not the proxy
reconstructions show the post-1980 warming--and they do.
See the attached plot which compares the NH (blue), SH (green), and GLB (red) series
through 1995. The late 20th century is the nominal maximum for all 3 series *without any
consideration of the information in the instrumental mean series*. This  thus refutes
the 2nd criticism cited by the Idso brothers.
One note about the 40 year smoothing. As in the trends in the instrumental series shown
by Mann and Jones, a boundary constraint on the 40-year smooth has been used that
minimizes the 2nd derivative at the boundary--this trends to preserve the trend near the
end of the series and has been argued as the optimal constraint in the present of
nonstationary behavior near the end of a time series (Park, 1992; Ghil et al, 2002).  I
favor the use of this constraint in the smoothing of records that exhibit a significant
trend as one approaches the end of the available data. This might be worth talking about
in the next IPCC when the subject of adopting uniform standards for smoothing data, etc.
are discussed...
In retrospect, Phil and I should have included this analysis in the GRL article, but its
always hard to know what specifics the contrarians are going to target in their attacks.
This analysis however, will be included in a review paper by Jones and Mann on "climate
in past millennia" that is presently being finalized for "Reviews of Geophysics".
I hope that helps clarify any questions any of you might have had. Please feel free to
pass this information along to anyone who might benefit from it.
Now, back to fighting the "Shaviv and Veizer" propaganda along w/ Ben Santer and David
Parker out in Italy...
mike
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: VS: [Climate Sceptics] Mann & Jones on 1800 yrs proxies
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:52:40 +0300
From: Timo Hämeranta
To:
CC: "Charles F. \"Chick\" Keller"
, "Kirill Ya.
Kondratyev"
, "Michael C. MacCracken"
, "S. Fred Singer"
, "Sallie
Baliunas"
, "Carl Wunsch"
,
"David R. Legates"
, "George Kukla"
, "James E. Hansen"
,
"Tom Wigley"
, "Willie Soon"
Dear all,
GRL finally published the study
Mann, Michael E. and Phil D. Jones, 2003. Global surface temperatures
over the past two millennia, Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 30, No.
15, 1820, 10.1029/2003GL017814, August 14, 2003
Abstract
[1]   We present reconstructions of Northern and Southern Hemisphere
mean surface temperature over the past two millennia based on
high-resolution ?proxy? temperature data which retain millennial-scale
variability. These reconstructions indicate that late 20th century
warmth is unprecedented for at least roughly the past two millennia for
the Northern Hemisphere. Conclusions for the Southern Hemisphere and
global mean temperature are limited by the sparseness of available proxy
data in the Southern Hemisphere at present.
We already noticed the study in
Mann, Michael, Caspar Ammann, Kevin Trenberth, Raymond Bradley, Keith
Briffa, Philip Jones, Tim Osborn, Tom Crowley, Malcolm Hughes, Michael
Oppenheimer, Jonathan Overpeck, Scott Rutherford, and Tom Wigley, 2003.
On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late-20th Century Warmth. Eos, Vol.
84, No. 27, page 256, July 8, 2003
There we found that " .... an extension back through the past 2000
years based on eight long reconstructions [Mann and Jones,2003]."
CO2 Science Magazine today presents the study as follows:
Was Late 20th Century Warming Really Unprecedented Over the Past Two
Millennia?
Mann, M.E. and Jones, P.D.  2003.  Global surface temperatures over the
past two millennia.  Geophysical Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2003GL017814.
What was done
Using 23 individual proxy records from 8 distinct regions in the
Northern Hemisphere and 5 proxy records from the Southern Hemisphere,
the authors constructed Northern and Southern Hemispheric and global
mean temperature histories over the period AD 200 to as close as they
could get to the present employing a 40-year lowpass filter of the data.
What was learned
Mann and Jones say their temperature reconstructions indicate that "late
20th century warmth is unprecedented for at least roughly the past two
millennia for the Northern Hemisphere."  They also say their data and
analysis "suggest a similar, but less definitive conclusion, for the
global mean."
Although we and many others have many bones to pick with many aspects of
Mann and Jones' analysis, we will here focus on just a couple of points
and temporarily grant them the benefit of the doubt in those other areas.
First of all, granting them almost everything they have done, it can
readily be seen from their own graph of their own results that the end
point of their reconstructed global mean temperature history is not the
warmest period of the prior 1800 years.  In fact, their treatment of the
data depicts three earlier warmer periods: one just prior to AD 700, one
just after AD 700 and one just prior to AD 1000 (see figure below).
Reconstructed global temperature anomaly (based on 1961-1990
instrumental reference period) adapted from Mann and Jones (2003).
The globe only becomes warmer in the 20th century when its measured
temperatures are substituted for its reconstructed temperatures.  This
approach is clearly unacceptable; it is like comparing apples and
oranges.  If one has only reconstructed temperatures from the distant
past, one can only validly compare them with reconstructed temperatures
from the recent past.
Another important point that is ignored by Mann and Jones is that the
last century witnessed a dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration, which everyone knows is an effective aerial fertilizer.
It also witnessed a dramatic increase in atmospheric nitrogen
deposition, which further enhances plant growth.  Consequently, as
tree-ring data comprise the bulk of the proxy temperature information
employed by Mann and Jones, their reconstructed global mean temperature
history must possess a non-temperature-induced pseudo-warming signal
driven by CO2- and nitrogen-induced increases in growth that make 20th
century warming appear significantly greater than it really is.  Hence,
there could well be still other periods of the past 1800 years (in
addition to the three we have already noted) when the global mean
temperature was also warmer than it was at the end of their
reconstructed record in the 20th century.
What it means
Mann and Jones have clearly failed to demonstrate the key point they
desired to make in their paper.  Their data, however, speak for
themselves in clearly demonstrating that late 20th century warmth was
not unprecedented over the past two millennia.
????
We have already discussed about this study in July under title ?Empire
Strikes back on Soon et al.? ´
All the best
Timo Hämeranta
Moderator, Climatesceptics
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[1]
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[2]
References
1.
2.


Hi Mike,
after a few bits of holiday here and there, I've now had time to complete my (initial) approach to estimating reconstruction errors on your NH temperature reconstruction.  This is all based on the calibration residuals that you kindly sent me a few weeks ago.
My rationale for doing this was that I wanted uncertainty/error estimates that were dependent on the time scale being considered (e.g. a decadal mean, an annual mean, a 30-year mean, etc.).  I didn't think you had published timescale-dependent errors, hence my attempt.
A second reason is that I wanted to be able to model (i.e., stochastically generate) time series of the errors, with appropriate timescale characteristics.  Again, I didn't think that I could get this from your published results.
The attached document summarises the progress I've made.  There are a few questions I have, and I'm concerned that the reduction in uncertainty with increasing time scale is too great.  Perhaps one should be ultra conservative and have no reduction with time scale?  Yet surely there ought to be some cancelling of partly uncorrelated errors?  The document is not meant to form part of any paper on this (I hope to use the errors in a paper, but the point of the paper is on trend detection, not estimating errors), it just seemed appropriate to write it up like this to inform you of what I've done so far.
Any comments or criticisms will be very useful.
Cheers
Tim


Hi Tim
Thanks for sending this. Unfortunately, I don't really have the time look into any of this
in detail, but let me offer the following additional explanation which will hopefully
clarify the nature of any differences between our results. I fear that I may not have been
clear enough in my previous explanation.
The reason that our uncertainty estimates reduce little fwith increasing timescale for the
earlier networks is that the effective degrees of freedom are diminished sharply by the
redness of the calibration residuals for networks prior to AD 1600 and earlier. But unlike
you, wee do not model the residuals as an AR process--this may the source of some of the
differences.
Back to AD 1600 (and later networks), the calibration residuals pass for "white noise" ,
and the estimates follow simply from the residual uncalibrated variance, and the reduction
of variance upon averaging follows standard sqrt(N) statistics.
Prior to that, the networks failed the test. So we decomposed the calibration residuals
into a "low-frequency" band (all timescales longer than 40 years which are not
distinguishable from secular timescales, since I had a roughly 80 years series and was
evaluating the spectrum using a multiple-taper estimate with a spectral bandwidth of +/-2
Rayleigh frequencies). We then estimated the enhancement of unresolved variance in the
low-frequency band relative to the nominal white noise level. The enhancement was about a
factor of 5-6 or so for the earlier networks, as I recall. To get the component of
uncertainty for the low-frequency band alone (timescales longer than 40 years), I simply
took that enhancement factor x the nominal unresolved calibration variance x the bandwidth
of the "low-frequency" band (0.025 cycle/year). This yields a reduction in variance that is
far less than the nominal "sqrt N" reduction applied to the individual annual
uncertainties. Of course,  one could calculate the equivalent N' (effective temporal
degrees of freedom) that this implies in a model of the residuals as AR(1) red noise,  but
we didn't take this approach. We modeled it as a simple step-increase spectrum (w/ the
boundary at f=0.025 cycle/yr). Modeling the residuals as red noise would, my guess is,
generally yield the same result, but it might have the effect of dampening the estimated
enhancement of unresolved variance at the longest timescales. In any case, it should yield
similar, but it would be very surprising if identical(!), results, consistent w/ your
observations.
My guess for the difference in the AD 1600 network is that, based on the spectrum test, we
did not reject the white noise null hypothesis for the residuals. So there was no variance
enhancement factor for that, or subsequent, networks. It would appear that your method
argues for significant serial correlation in that case. Not sure why we come to different
conclusions in this case (perhaps using different criteria for testing for the significance
of redness in the spectrum/serial correlation), but that's probably the reason...
I hope that clarifies this. Please keep me in the loop on this. I've copied to Scott, who
may have some additional insights here, since we've been dealing w/ these issues now in the
RegEM estimates (Scott:did we ever reject the white noise null hypothesis in the residuals
for any of our proxy-based NH reconstrucitions in the paper submited to J. Climate? I don't
recall).
Thanks,
mike
At 04:33 PM 8/29/2003 +0100, you wrote:
Hi Mike,
after a few bits of holiday here and there, I've now had time to complete my (initial)
approach to estimating reconstruction errors on your NH temperature reconstruction.
This is all based on the calibration residuals that you kindly sent me a few weeks ago.
My rationale for doing this was that I wanted uncertainty/error estimates that were
dependent on the time scale being considered (e.g. a decadal mean, an annual mean, a
30-year mean, etc.).  I didn't think you had published timescale-dependent errors, hence
my attempt.
A second reason is that I wanted to be able to model (i.e., stochastically generate)
time series of the errors, with appropriate timescale characteristics.  Again, I didn't
think that I could get this from your published results.
The attached document summarises the progress I've made.  There are a few questions I
have, and I'm concerned that the reduction in uncertainty with increasing time scale is
too great.  Perhaps one should be ultra conservative and have no reduction with time
scale?  Yet surely there ought to be some cancelling of partly uncorrelated errors?  The
document is not meant to form part of any paper on this (I hope to use the errors in a
paper, but the point of the paper is on trend detection, not estimating errors), it just
seemed appropriate to write it up like this to inform you of what I've done so far.
Any comments or criticisms will be very useful.
Cheers
Tim
Dr Timothy J Osborn
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
Norwich  NR4 7TJ, UK
e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
phone:    +44 1603 592089
fax:      +44 1603 507784
web:      [1]~timo/
sunclock: [2]~timo/sunclock.htm
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[3]
Attachment Converted: "c:\documents and settings\tim osborn\my documents\eudora\attach\Mann
uncertainty.doc"
References
1. ~timo/
2. ~timo/sunclock.htm
3.


Hi Keith,
After the meeting in Norway, where I presented the Esper stuff as
described in the extended abstract I sent you, and hearing Bradley's
follow-up talk on how everybody but him has fucked up in
reconstructing past NH temperatures over the past 1000 years (this is
a bit of an overstatement on my part I must admit, but his air of
papal infallibility is really quite nauseating at times), I have come
up with an idea that I want you to be involved in.  Consider the
tentative title:
"Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Over The Past Millennium: Where Are
The Greatest Uncertainties?"
Authors:  Cook, Briffa, Esper, Osborn, D'Arrigo, Bradley(?), Jones
(??), Mann (infinite?) - I am afraid the Mike and Phil are too
personally invested in things now (i.e. the 2003 GRL paper that is
probably the worst paper Phil has ever been involved in - Bradley
hates it as well), but I am willing to offer to include them if they
can contribute without just defending their past work - this is the
key to having anyone involved. Be honest. Lay it all out on the table
and don't start by assuming that ANY reconstruction is better than
any other.
Here are my ideas for the paper in a nutshell (please bear with me):
1) Describe the past work (Mann, Briffa, Jones, Crowley, Esper, yada,
yada, yada) and their data over-laps.
2) Use the Briffa&Osborn "Blowing Hot And Cold" annually-resolved
recons (plus Crowley?) (boreholes not included) for comparison
because they are all scaled identically to the same NH extra-tropics
temperatures and the Mann version only includes that part of the NH
(we could include Mann's full NH recon as well, but he would probably
go ballistic, and also the new Mann&Jones mess?)
3) Characterize the similarities between series using unrotated
(maybe rotated as well) EOF analysis (correlation for pure
similarity, covariance for differences in amplitude as well) and
filtering on the reconstructions - unfiltered, 20yr high-pass, 100-20
bandpass, 100 lowpass - to find out where the reconstructions are
most similar and different - use 1st-EOF loadings as a guide, the
comparisons of the power spectra could also be done I suppose
4) Do these EOF analyses on different time periods to see where they
differ most, e.g., running 100-year EOF windows on the unfiltered
data, running 300-year for 20-lp data (something like that anyway),
and plot the 1st-EOF loadings as a function of time
5) Discuss where the biggest differences lie between reconstructions
(this will almost certainly occur most in the 100 lowpass data),
taking into account data overlaps
6) Point out implications concerning the next IPCC assessment and EBM
forcing experiments that are basically designed to fit the lower
frequencies - if the greatest uncertainties are in the >100 year
band, then that is where the greatest uncertainties will be in the
forcing experiments
7) Publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address
Without trying to prejudice this work, but also because of what I
almost think I know to be the case, the results of this study will
show that we can probably say a fair bit about
100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know
with certainty that we know fuck-all).
Of course, none of what I have proposed has addressed the issue of
seasonality of response. So what I am suggesting is strictly an
empirical comparison of published 1000 year NH reconstructions
because many of the same tree-ring proxies get used in both seasonal
and annual recons anyway. So all I care about is how the recons
differ and where they differ most in frequency and time without any
direct consideration of their TRUE association with observed
temperatures.
I think this is exactly the kind of study that needs to be done
before the next IPCC assessment. But to give it credibility, it has
to have a reasonably broad spectrum of authors to avoid looking like
a biased attack paper, i.e. like Soon and Balliunas.
If you don't want to do it, just say so and I will drop the whole
idea like a hot potato. I honestly don't want to do it without your
participation. If you want to be the lead on it, I am fine with that
too.
Cheers,
Ed
--
==================================
Dr. Edward R. Cook
Doherty Senior Scholar and
Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, New York 10964  USA
Email:	drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu
Phone:	845-365-8618
Fax:	845-365-8152
==================================


Hi Ed,
first all, yes I agree that we need a paper that takes a more objective look at where we
are now and how we can take things forward in terms of NH temperature reconstructions (and
possibly global, SH, spatial etc.).
As Keith said, we (mainly I so far) have been planning our version of this (hopefully)
"objective assessment", and by chance I was sketching out a vague outline of its possible
content.  We've been keeping this fairly close to our chests for now, so please keep our
plans/ideas to yourself for the moment.  There is partial overlap between our ideas and
yours, so it might be good to do this jointly.  Anyway, my current ideas are a number of
forum articles, the first comparing existing reconstructions but without going into more
depth, and the other three looking at the way forward (i.e. what should we attempt to do to
improve them):
Forum piece (1): Comparison of existing reconstructions
This has most overlaps with your ideas, though I hadn't thought of it being so
comprehensive.  I was thinking more of:
(a) comparing original series.
(b) comparing them after our recalibration to common target data, including discussion of
why some things don't change much (e.g. relative positioning of reconstructions), though
amplitudes can change - and of course the comparison of Mann et al. with and without
oceans/tropics.
(c) maybe a bit on comparison with boreholes, though maybe not.
(d) uncertainty estimates and how these may decrease with time scale and hence not all
reconstructions lie in the Mann et al. uncertainty ranges.
Forum piece (2): Selection of predictand and predictor data
(a) What to try to reconstruct and why it matters - e.g. will we get the wrong spectral
shape if we reconstruct ocean SST from land-based proxies.  Plus some on seasonality,
though Jones, Osborn and Briffa cover part of that issue (are you aware of that paper, in
press with JGR?).
(b) What proxies should be used - e.g. does throwing in "poor" proxies cause a problem with
simple averaging, weighted averaging and multivariate regression approaches.  Plus does
using precipitation proxies to reconstruct temperature result in the wrong spectral shape?
Forum piece (3): Reconstruction methods
Something here on different methods (simple averaging, multivariate regression type
approaches) and different implementation choices (e.g. calibration against trends/filtered
data).  Not entirely sure about this, but it would not be new work, just would critically
appraise the methods used to date and what their theoretical/potential problems/advantages
might be.
Forum piece (4): Estimating uncertainty
Again, not entirely sure yet, but this must emphasise the absolute requirement to estimate
AND USE uncertainty when comparing reconstructions against observations or simulations
etc.  Then something about how to do it, contrasting using calibration residuals,
verification residuals, parameter uncertainty, with the type of approach that you've taken
(bootstrap uncertainty, or measures of the EPS) to look at the common signal, with
additional uncertainty of how the common signal differs from the predictand.
So that's it!!  Perhaps rather ambitious, so maybe a reduction to certain key points might
be required.  I was deliberately avoiding any review of tree-ring contributions and
low-frequency per se, thinking that you and Keith would be taking the lead on that kind of
review.
One final think to mention, is that the emails copied below and the attached file might be
of interest to you as an example of something that *might* go in a comparison paper of
existing reconstructions.  It's shows how the recalibrated average of existing
reconstructions differs from the average of existing calibrated reconstructions.  You'll
see from Mike Mann's initial request below that he was thinking of it as a contribution to
the EOS rebuttal of Soon and Baliunas, but I've not heard much from him since.  Also Tom
Crowley was very interests in this composite of the reconstructions, and I started to
converse with him about it but never finished estimating the uncertainty range on the
composite series and kind of stopped emailing him.  But I guess either of them might
reproduce this idea sometime, if it suits them.
A visit to talk face to face about all these things would be good.  Keith and I have been
talking about how to fit a visit in.
Cheers
Tim
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 16:16:16 +0000
To: "Michael E. Mann"
, Tom Crowley
, Phil Jones
From: Tim Osborn
Subject: Re: Fwd: Soon & Baliunas
Cc: Malcolm Hughes
, rbradley@geo.umass.edu,
mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu, srutherford@gso.uri.edu, k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, mann@virginia.edu
This is an excellent idea, Mike, IN PRINCIPLE at least.  In practise, however, it raises
some interesting results (as I have found when attempting this myself) that may be
difficult to avoid getting bogged down with discussing.
The attached .pdf figure shows an example of what I have produced (NB. please don't
circulate this further, as it is from work that is currently being finished off -
however, I'm happy to use it here to illustrate my point).
I took 7 reconstructions and re-calibrated them over a common period and against an
observed target series (in this case, land-only, Apr-Sep, >20N - BUT I GET SIMILAR
RESULTS WITH OTHER CHOICES, and this re-calibration stage is not critical).  You will
have seen figures similar to this in stuff Keith and I have published.  See the coloured
lines in the attached figure.
In this example I then simply took an unweighted average of the calibrated series, but
the weighted average obtained via an EOF approach can give similar results.  The average
is shown by the thin black line (I've ignored the potential problems of series covering
different periods).  This was all done with raw, unsmoothed data, even though 30-yr
smoothed curves are plotted in the figure.
The thick black line is what I get when I re-calibrate the average record against my
target observed series.  THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT.  The *re-calibrated* mean of the
reconstructions is nowhere near the mean of the reconstructions.  It has enhanced
variability, because averaging the reconstructions results in a redder time series
(there is less common variance between the reconstructions at the higher frequencies
compared with the lower frequencies, so the former averages out to leave a smoother
curve) and the re-calibration is then more of a case of fitting a trend (over my
calibration period 1881-1960) to the observed trend.  This results in enhanced
variability, but also enhanced uncertainty (not shown here) due to fewer effective
degrees of freedom during calibration.
Obviously there are questions about observed target series, which series to
include/exclude etc., but the same issue will arise regardless: the analysis will not
likely lie near to the middle of the cloud of published series and explaining the
reasons behind this etc. will obscure the message of a short EOS piece.
It is, of course, interesting - not least for the comparison with borehole-based
estimates - but that is for a separate paper, I think.
My suggestion would be to stick with one of these options:
(i) a single example reconstruction;
(ii) a plot of a cloud of reconstructions;
(iii) a plot of the "envelope" containing the cloud of reconstructions (perhaps also the
envelope would encompass their uncertainty estimates), but without showing the
individual reconstruction best guesses.
How many votes for each?
Cheers
Tim
At 15:32 12/03/03, Michael E. Mann wrote:
p.s. The idea of both a representative time-slice spatial plot emphasizing the spatial
variability of e.g. the MWP or LIA, and an EOF analysis of all the records is a great
idea. I'd like to suggest a small modification of the latter:
I would suggest we show 2 curves, representing the 1st PC of two different groups, one
of empirical reconstructions, the other of model simulations, rather than just one in
the time plot.
Group #1 could include:
1) Crowley & Lowery
2) Mann et al 1999
3) Bradley and Jones 1995
4) Jones et al, 1998
5) Briffa et al 200X? [Keith/Tim to provide their preferred MXD reconstruction]
6) Esper et al [yes, no?--one series that differs from the others won't make much of a
difference]
I would suggest we scale the resulting PC to the CRU 1856-1960 annual Northern
Hemisphere mean instrumental record, which should overlap w/ all of the series, and
which pre-dates the MXD decline issue...
Group #2 would include various model simulations using different forcings, and with
slightly different sensitivities. This could include 6 or so simulation results:
1) 3 series from Crowley (2000) [based on different solar/volcanic reconstructions],
2) 2 series from Gerber et al (Bern modeling group result) [based on different assumed
sensitivities]
1) Bauer et al series (Claussen group EMIC result) [includes 19th/20th century land use
changes as a forcing].
I would suggest that the model's 20th century mean is aligned with the 20th century
instrumental N.Hem mean for comparison (since this is when we know the forcings best).
I'd like to nominate Scott R. as the collector of the time series and the performer of
the EOF analyses, scaling, and plotting, since Scott already has many of the series and
many of the appropriate analysis and plotting tools set up to do this.
We could each send our preferred versions of our respective time series to Scott as an
ascii attachment, etc.
thoughts, comments?
thanks,
mike
At 10:08 AM 3/12/2003 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
Thanks Tom,
Either would be good, but Eos is an especially good idea. Both Ellen M-T and Keith
Alverson are on the editorial board there, so I think there would be some receptiveness
to such a submission.t
I see this as complementary to other pieces that we have written or are currently
writing (e.g. a review that Ray, Malcolm, and Henry Diaz are doing for Science on the
MWP) and this should proceed entirely independently of that.
If there is group interest  in taking this tack, I'd be happy to contact Ellen/Keith
about the potential interest in Eos, or I'd be happy to let Tom or Phil to take the lead
too...
Comments?
mike
At 09:15 AM 3/12/2003 -0500, Tom Crowley wrote:
Phil et al,
I suggest either BAMS or Eos - the latter would probably be better because it is
shorter, quicker, has a wide distribution, and all the points that need to be made have
been made before.
rather than dwelling on Soon and Baliunas I think the message should be pointedly made
against all of the standard claptrap being dredged up.
I suggest two figures- one on time series and another showing the spatial array of
temperatures at one point in the Middle Ages.  I produced a few of those for the Ambio
paper but already have one ready for the Greenland settlement period 965-995 showing the
regional nature of the warmth in that figure.  we could add a few new sites to it, but
if people think otherwise we could of course go in some other direction.
rather than getting into the delicate question of which paleo reconstruction to use I
suggest that we show a time series that is an eof of the different reconstructions - one
that emphasizes the commonality of the message.
Tom
Dear All,
I agree with all the points being made and the multi-authored article would be a
good idea,
but how do we go about not letting it get buried somewhere. Can we not address the
misconceptions by finally coming up with definitive dates for the LIA and MWP and
redefining what we think the terms really mean? With all of us and more on the paper,
it should
carry a lot of weight. In a way we will be setting the agenda for what should be being
done
over the next few years.
We do want a reputable journal but is The Holocene the right vehicle. It is
probably the
best of its class of journals out there.  Mike and I were asked to write an article for
the EGS
journal of Surveys of Geophysics. You've not heard of this - few have, so we declined.
However,
it got me thinking that we could try for Reviews of Geophysics. Need to contact the
editorial
board to see if this might be possible. Just a thought, but it certainly has a high
profile.
What we want to write is NOT the scholarly review a la Jean Grove (bless her soul)
that
just reviews but doesn't come to anything firm. We want a critical review that enables
agendas to be set. Ray's recent multi-authored piece goes a lot of the way so we need
to build on this.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:55 11/03/03 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
HI Malcolm,
Thanks for the feedback--I largely concur. I do, though, think there is a particular
problem with "Climate Research".  This is where my colleague Pat Michaels now publishes
exclusively, and his two closest colleagues are on the editorial board and review editor
board. So I promise you, we'll see more of this there, and I personally think there *is*
a bigger problem with the "messenger" in this case...
But the Soon and Baliunas paper is its own, separate issue too. I too like Tom's latter
idea, of a  more hefty multi-authored piece in an appropriate journal (Paleoceanography?
Holocene?) that seeks to correct a number of misconceptions out there, perhaps using
Baliunas and Soon as a case study ('poster child'?), but taking on a slightly greater
territory too.
Question is, who would take the lead role. I *know* we're all very busy,
mike
At 10:28 AM 3/11/03 -0700, Malcolm Hughes wrote:
I'm with Tom on this. In a way it comes back to a rant of mine
to which some of you have already been victim. The general
point is that there are two arms of climatology:
neoclimatology - what you do based on instrumental records
and direct, systematic observations in networks - all set in a
very Late Holocene/Anthropocene time with hourly to decadal
interests.
paleoclimatology - stuff from rocks, etc., where major changes
in the Earth system, including its climate, associated with
major changes in boundary conditions, may be detected by
examination of one or a handful of paleo records.
Between these two is what we do - "mesoclimatology" -
dealing with many of the same phenomena as neoclimatology,
using documentary and natural archives to look at phenomena
on interannual to millennial time scales. Given relatively small
changes in boundary conditions (until the last couple of
centuries), mesoclimatology has to work in a way that is very
similar to neoclimatology. Most notably, it depends on heavily
replicated networks of precisely dated records capable of
being either calibrated, or whose relationship to climate may
be modeled accuarately and precisely.
Because this distinction is not recognized by many (e.g.
Sonnechkin, Broecker, Karlen) we see an accumulation of
misguided attempts at describing the climate of recent
millennia. It would be better to head this off in general, rather
than draw attention to a bad paper. After all, as Tom rightly
says, we could all nominate really bad papers that have been
published in journals of outstanding reputation (although there
could well be differences between our lists).
End of rant, Cheers, Malcolm
> Hi guys,
>
> junk gets published in lots of places.  I think that what could be
> done is a short reply to the authors in Climate Research OR a SLIGHTLY
> longer note in a reputable journal entitled something like "Continuing
> Misconceptions About interpretation of past climate change."  I kind
> of like the more pointed character of the latter and submitting it as
> a short note with a group authorship carries a heft that a reply to a
> paper, in no matter what journal, does not.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> >  Dear All,
> >        Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of
> >emails this morning in
> >  response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting)
> >and picked up Tom's old
> >  address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
> >      I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling -
> >worst word I can think of today
> >  without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to
> >read more at the weekend
> >  as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston.
> >Added Ed, Peck and Keith A.
> >  onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the
> >bait, but I have so much else on at
> >  the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we
> >should consider what
> >  to do there.
> >      The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper
> >determine the answer they get. They
> >  have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I
> >could argue 1998 wasn't the
> >  warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere.
> >With their LIA being 1300-
> >1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first
> >reading) no discussion of
> >  synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental
> >record, the early and late
> >  20th century warming periods are only significant locally at
> >between 10-20% of grid boxes.
> >       Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do
> >something - even if this is just
> >  to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think
> >the skeptics will use
> >  this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number of
> >
> >years if it goes
> >  unchallenged.
> >
> >        I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having
> >nothing more to do with it until they
> >  rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the
> >editorial board, but papers
> >  get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >  Dear all,
> >       Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore
> >probably, so don't let it spoil your
> >  day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal
> >having a number of editors. The
> >  responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has let
> >
> >a few papers through by
> >  Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von Storch
> >
> >about this, but got nowhere.
> >      Another thing to discuss in Nice !
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >>X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
> >>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
> >>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
> >>To: p.jones@uea
> >>From: Tim Osborn
> >>Subject: Soon & Baliunas
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
> >>Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
> >>Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
> >>School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site: University of East
> >>Anglia __________|   [1]~timo/ Norwich  NR4
> >>7TJ         | sunclock: UK                       |
> >>[2]~timo/sunclock.htm
> >
> >Prof. Phil Jones
> >Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
> >School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
> >University of East Anglia
> >Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
> >NR4 7TJ
> >UK
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >-------
> >
> >
> >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:Soon & Baliunas 2003.pdf (PDF
> >/CARO) (00016021)
>
>
> --
> Thomas J. Crowley
> Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
> Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
> Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
> Box 90227
> 103  Old Chem Building Duke University
> Durham, NC  27708
>
> tcrowley@duke.edu
> 919-681-8228
> 919-684-5833  fax
Malcolm Hughes
Professor of Dendrochronology
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-621-6470
fax 520-621-8229
_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[3]
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Thomas J. Crowley
Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Box 90227
103  Old Chem Building Duke University
Durham, NC  27708
tcrowley@duke.edu
919-681-8228
919-684-5833  fax
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[4]
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[5]
References
1. ~timo/
2. ~timo/sunclock.htm
3.
4.
5.


sorry phil, one more relevant item. I've cc'd in Keith on this, since you had mentioned
that you had discussed the issue w/ him.
This is from Dave Meko's (quite nice!) statistics lecture notes:
[1]~dmeko/notes_8.pdf
See page 2, section 8.1.
He provides two (in reality, as I mentioned before, there are really 3!) basic boundary
constraints on a smooth (ie, in "filtering"). The first method he refers to is what I
called the  "minimum norm" constraint (assuming the long-term mean beyond the boundary).
The second, which he calls "reflecting the data across the endpoints", is the constraint I
have been employing which, again, is mathematically equivalent to insuring a point of
inflection at the boundary.  This is the preferable constraint for non-stationary mean
processes, and we are, I assert, on very solid ground (preferable ground in fact) in
employing this boundary constraint for series with trends...
mike
At 05:20 PM 9/5/2003 +0100, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike,
Attached some more plots.
1.  Figure 7 - Forcing.  Guess this is it. Could cut the y scale to -6 and say in
caption that
1258 or 1259 is the only event to go beyond this, then give value in caption. Scale
will then widen out.  OK to do ?   Caspar's solar now there.
2.  Fig 2a  - first go at coverage. This is % coverage over 1856-2002 from HadCRUT2v.
3. Fig 4 again. Moved legends and reduced scale.  Talked to Keith and we both think
that
the linear trend padding will get criticised. Did you use this in GRL and or Fig 5 for
RoG
with Scott.  If so we need to explain it.
On this plot all the series are in different units, so normalised over 1751-1950 (or
equiv for
decades) then smoothed.  Again here I can reduce scale further and Law Dome can go
out of the plot. Thoughts ?  Think all should be same scale.
Have got GKSS model runs for Fig 8. Were you happy Hans' conditions. If so I'll send
onto
Scott.
Next week I only have Fig 2b to do. This will be annual plot of NH, Europe and CET,
smoothed in some way.
For the SOI I and Tim reckon that it won't work showing this at interannual
timescale with
3 plots. It will then not be like the NAO plot.
Thoughts on colours as well.
Have a good weekend.  Logging off once this has gone.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[2]
References
1. ~dmeko/notes_8.pdf
2.


sorry, meant "is just the minimum slope" constraint, in first sentence...
apologies for the multiple emails,
mike
At 01:47 PM 9/5/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
Actually,
I think Dave's suggestion "reflecting the data across the endpoints" is really just the
"minimum norm" constraint, which insures zero slope near the boundary. In other words,
he's probably only talking about reflecting about the time axis. I assert that a
preferable alternative, when there is a trend in the series extending through the
boundary is to reflect both about the time axis and the amplitude axis (where the
reflection is with respect to the y value of the final data point). This insures a point
of inflection to the smooth at the boundary, and is essentially what the method I'm
employing does (I simply reflect the trend but not the variability about the trend--they
are almost the same)...
mike
At 01:34 PM 9/5/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
sorry phil, one more relevant item. I've cc'd in Keith on this, since you had mentioned
that you had discussed the issue w/ him.
This is from Dave Meko's (quite nice!) statistics lecture notes:
[1]~dmeko/notes_8.pdf
See page 2, section 8.1.
He provides two (in reality, as I mentioned before, there are really 3!) basic boundary
constraints on a smooth (ie, in "filtering"). The first method he refers to is what I
called the  "minimum norm" constraint (assuming the long-term mean beyond the
boundary).  The second, which he calls "reflecting the data across the endpoints", is
the constraint I have been employing which, again, is mathematically equivalent to
insuring a point of inflection at the boundary.  This is the preferable constraint for
non-stationary mean processes, and we are, I assert, on very solid ground (preferable
ground in fact) in employing this boundary constraint for series with trends...
mike
At 05:20 PM 9/5/2003 +0100, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike,
Attached some more plots.
1.  Figure 7 - Forcing.  Guess this is it. Could cut the y scale to -6 and say in
caption that
1258 or 1259 is the only event to go beyond this, then give value in caption. Scale
will then widen out.  OK to do ?   Caspar's solar now there.
2.  Fig 2a  - first go at coverage. This is % coverage over 1856-2002 from HadCRUT2v.
3. Fig 4 again. Moved legends and reduced scale.  Talked to Keith and we both think
that
the linear trend padding will get criticised. Did you use this in GRL and or Fig 5 for
RoG
with Scott.  If so we need to explain it.
On this plot all the series are in different units, so normalised over 1751-1950 (or
equiv for
decades) then smoothed.  Again here I can reduce scale further and Law Dome can go
out of the plot. Thoughts ?  Think all should be same scale.
Have got GKSS model runs for Fig 8. Were you happy Hans' conditions. If so I'll send
onto
Scott.
Next week I only have Fig 2b to do. This will be annual plot of NH, Europe and CET,
smoothed in some way.
For the SOI I and Tim reckon that it won't work showing this at interannual
timescale with
3 plots. It will then not be like the NAO plot.
Thoughts on colours as well.
Have a good weekend.  Logging off once this has gone.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[2]
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[3]
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[4]
References
1. ~dmeko/notes_8.pdf
2.
3.
4.


Dear All,
Link below is to a paper just out in the US.  Could be some press
coverage - as it says
there is no difference between urban and rural stations for temperature
over the US !
Interesting to see if the skeptics pick up on this. They are probably
still going through the
Vinnikov/Grody paper in Science showing MSU2 warming more than the
surface, so
they have a lot to look at.
I reviewed Peterson's one with Chris and couldn't see anything wrong
with the main message.
Cheers
Phil
>Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 10:23:46 -0400
>From: "Thomas C Peterson"
>Organization: NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
>X-Accept-Language: en
>To: Phil Jones
>Subject: rural/urban paper
>
>Hi, Phil.
>
>I was going to send you a copy of my rural/urban paper, but I didn't get
>a .pdf before it was published.  As it is 6 megs, I'll just give you the
>link instead:
>
>
>
>Regards,
>
>           Tom
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi Tim, hi  Keith,
attached you can find my reconstruction of the cold season temperature
anomalies. I have retained the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th EOFs for the whole time
span (1500-1976). It seems to be a rather strange choice, but if I retain the
1st and/or 2nd EOFs the reconstructed T anomalies for Northern Europe are too
large in comparison to observed anomalies.
You will see that calibration/verification skills are miserable. But it puts
my mind to rest, if you say, that this is an expected result.
Last week you wrote :
>Please let us (me and Keith) know if you are happy with your implementation
>of the Mann et al. method.  I remember that you had some strange results
>when you applied it to the model simulations - did you solve those
>problems?  We might be able to help or provide advice if you still have
>problems with the method.
The problems I mentioned at the meeting in France arose if I applied my
implementation of the method to the INSTRUMENTAL data and I tried to explain
this effect through the gaps in the data. In the meantime I was able to
eliminate to some degree this problem through the use of other fortran
compiler and numeric library. I will prepare an slide with assesment of the
performance of the current method implementation for "perfect proxy data"
(i.e. instrumental data as proxy data).
And now some words to agenda
1) Antje Weisheimer will say initial greeting words and make all
organisational announcments.
2) As you know, Ulrich take part in the analysis of the simulations  performed
with ECHO-G by GKSS group. I am not sure, but maybe he will also present his
ideas for further (in framework of SO&P reasonable) simulations, that can be
conducted by FUB.
For the presentations both OHP and data projector are available.
Best redards
Irina
--
________________________________________________________
Irina Fast
Freie Universität Berlin
Institut für Meteorologie
Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10
D-12165 Berlin
Germany
phone:  +49 (0)30 838 712 21   fax: +49 (0)30 838 711 60
e-mail: f14@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Attachment Converted: "c:\documents and settings\tim osborn\my documents\eudora\attach\rectemp_October-March1.dat"
Attachment Converted: "c:\documents and settings\tim osborn\my documents\eudora\attach\rectemp_regave_October-March1.dat"


Dear Mr. Matthews,
Unfortunately Phil Jones is travelling and will probably be unable to offer a separate
reply. Since your comments involve work that is his as well, I have therefore taken the
liberty of copying your inquiry and this reply to several of his British colleagues.
The comparisons made in our  paper are well explained therein, and your statements belie
the clearly-stated qualifications in our conclusions with regard to separate analyses of
the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and globe.
An objective reading of our manuscript would readily reveal that the comments you refer to
are scurrilous. These comments have not been made by scientists in the peer-reviewed
literature, but rather, on a website that, according to published accounts, is run by
individuals  sponsored by ExxonMobile corportation, hardly an objective source of
information.
Owing to pressures on my time, I will not be able to respond to any further inquiries from
you. Given your extremely poor past record of reporting on climate change issues, however,
I will leave you with some final words. Professional journalists I am used to dealing with
do not rely upon un-peer-reviewed claims off internet sites for their sources of
information. They rely instead on peer-reviewed scientific research, and mainstream, rather
than fringe, scientific opinion.
Sincerely,
Michael E. Mann
At 08:30 PM 10/2/2003 +0100, Robert Matthews wrote:
Dear Professor Mann
I'm putting together a piece on global warming, and I'll be making reference to your
paper in Geophysical Research Letters
with Prof Jones on "Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia".
When the paper came out, some critics argued that the paper actually showed that there
have been three periods in the last 2000 years which were warmer than today (one just
prior to AD 700, one just after, and one just prior to AD 1000).  They also claimed that
the paper could only conclude that current temperatures were warmer if one compared the
proxy data with other data sets. (For an example of these arguments, see:
[1]
I'd be very interested to include your rebuttals to these arguments in the piece I'm
doing. I must admit to being confused by why proxy data should be compared to
instrumental data for the last part of the data-set. Shouldn't the comparison be a
consistent one throughout ?
With many thanks for your patience with this
Robert Matthews
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Matthews
Science Correspondent, The Sunday Telegraph
C/o:  47 Victoria Road, Oxford, OX2 7QF
Email: [2]r.matthews@physics.org
Homepage: [3]www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk/People/
Tel: (+44)(0)1865 514 004 / Mob: 0790-651 9126
----------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[4]
References
1.
2. mailto:r.matthews@physics.org
3.
4.


For those of you who haven't seen it, this is Robert Matthews last article on the topic.
Hence the fairly brusque tone taken...
mike
Middle Ages were warmer than today, say scientists
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 06/04/2003)
Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented"
global warming
have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the
Earth
was warmer during the Middle Ages.
From the outset of the global warming debate in the late 1980s,
environmentalists have said that temperatures are rising higher and
faster
than ever before, leading some scientists to conclude that greenhouse
gases
from cars and power stations are causing these
"record-breaking" global
temperatures.
Last year, scientists working for the UK Climate Impacts Programme said
that
global temperatures were "the hottest since records began"
and added: "We
are pretty sure that climate change due to human activity is here and
it's
accelerating."
This announcement followed research published in 1998, when scientists
at
the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia declared
that
the 1990s had been hotter than any other period for 1,000 years.
Such claims have now been sharply contradicted by the most
comprehensive
study yet of global temperature over the past 1,000 years. A review of
more
than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures
are neither
the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most
extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the
environmentalists.
The review, carried out by a team from Harvard University, examined the
findings of studies of so-called "temperature proxies" such as
tree rings,
ice cores and historical accounts which allow scientists to estimate
temperatures prevailing at sites around the world.
The findings prove that the world experienced a Medieval Warm Period
between
the ninth and 14th centuries with global temperatures significantly
higher
even than today.
They also confirm claims that a Little Ice Age set in around 1300,
during
which the world cooled dramatically. Since 1900, the world has begun to
warm
up again - but has still to reach the balmy temperatures of the Middle
Ages.
The timing of the end of the Little Ice Age is especially significant, as
it
implies that the records used by climate scientists date from a time
when
the Earth was relatively cold, thereby exaggerating the significance of
today's temperature rise.
According to the researchers, the evidence confirms suspicions that
today's
"unprecedented" temperatures are simply the result of
examining temperature
change over too short a period of time.
The study, about to be published in the journal Energy and Environment,
has
been welcomed by sceptics of global warming, who say it puts the claims
of
environmentalists in proper context. Until now, suggestions that the
Middle
Ages were as warm as the 21st century had been largely anecdotal and
were
often challenged by believers in man-made global warming.
Dr Philip Stott, the professor emeritus of bio-geography at the
University
of London, told The Telegraph: "What has been forgotten in all the
discussion about global warming is a proper sense of history."
According to Prof Stott, the evidence also undermines doom-laden
predictions
about the effect of higher global temperatures. "During the Medieval
Warm
Period, the world was warmer even than today, and history shows
that it was
a wonderful period of plenty for everyone."
In contrast, said Prof Stott, severe famines and economic collapse
followed
the onset of the Little Ice Age around 1300. He said: "When the
temperature
started to drop, harvests failed and England's vine industry died. It
makes
one wonder why there is so much fear of warmth."
The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
the
official voice of global warming research, has conceded the possibility
that
today's "record-breaking" temperatures may be at least
partly caused by the
Earth recovering from a relatively cold period in recent history. While
the
evidence for entirely natural changes in the Earth's temperature
continues
to grow, its causes still remain mysterious.
Dr Simon Brown, the climate extremes research manager at the
Meteorological
Office at Bracknell, said that the present consensus among scientists on
the
IPCC was that the Medieval Warm Period could not be used to judge the
significance of existing warming.
Dr Brown said: "The conclusion that 20th century warming is not
unusual
relies on the assertion that the Medieval Warm Period was a global
phenomenon. This is not the conclusion of IPCC."
He added that there were also doubts about the reliability of
temperature
proxies such as tree rings: "They are not able to capture the recent
warming
of the last 50 years," he said.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of
reading.
Commercial information.   Privacy Policy.
At 04:11 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
Dear Mr. Matthews,
Unfortunately Phil Jones is travelling and will probably be unable to offer a separate
reply. Since your comments involve work that is his as well, I have therefore taken the
liberty of copying your inquiry and this reply to several of his British colleagues.
The comparisons made in our  paper are well explained therein, and your statements belie
the clearly-stated qualifications in our conclusions with regard to separate analyses of
the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and globe.
An objective reading of our manuscript would readily reveal that the comments you refer
to are scurrilous. These comments have not been made by scientists in the peer-reviewed
literature, but rather, on a website that, according to published accounts, is run by
individuals  sponsored by ExxonMobile corportation, hardly an objective source of
information.
Owing to pressures on my time, I will not be able to respond to any further inquiries
from you. Given your extremely poor past record of reporting on climate change issues,
however, I will leave you with some final words. Professional journalists I am used to
dealing with do not rely upon un-peer-reviewed claims off internet sites for their
sources of information. They rely instead on peer-reviewed scientific research, and
mainstream, rather than fringe, scientific opinion.
Sincerely,
Michael E. Mann
At 08:30 PM 10/2/2003 +0100, Robert Matthews wrote:
Dear Professor Mann
I'm putting together a piece on global warming, and I'll be making reference to your
paper in Geophysical Research Letters
with Prof Jones on "Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia".
When the paper came out, some critics argued that the paper actually showed that there
have been three periods in the last 2000 years which were warmer than today (one just
prior to AD 700, one just after, and one just prior to AD 1000).  They also claimed that
the paper could only conclude that current temperatures were warmer if one compared the
proxy data with other data sets. (For an example of these arguments, see:
[1]
I'd be very interested to include your rebuttals to these arguments in the piece I'm
doing. I must admit to being confused by why proxy data should be compared to
instrumental data for the last part of the data-set. Shouldn't the comparison be a
consistent one throughout ?
With many thanks for your patience with this
Robert Matthews
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Matthews
Science Correspondent, The Sunday Telegraph
C/o:  47 Victoria Road, Oxford, OX2 7QF
Email: [2]r.matthews@physics.org
Homepage: [3]www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk/People/
Tel: (+44)(0)1865 514 004 / Mob: 0790-651 9126
----------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[4]
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (434) 924-7770   FAX: (434) 982-2137
[5]
References
1.
2. mailto:r.matthews@physics.org
3.
4.
5.


Dear Mr. Matthews,
I have not read the criticism on the website you refer to, but will add to Mike Mann's
response in a small, but hopefully helpful, way.
Comparison of the Mann and Jones proxy-based reconstruction with instrumental temperature
data *is* a valid comparison to make, provided that the reconstruction is *calibrated* to
represent the instrumental record and provided that the *uncertainties* in the calibration
are taken into account when making the comparison.
That is, after all, the purpose of calibration - to allow two different data sets to be
compared!
As is clear from their article, Mann and Jones do undertake a careful calibration and only
make comparisons after the calibration, and their comparison figure includes their
estimated uncertainty range.  Thus the conclusions they draw (regarding whether recent
warming is unprecedented) are valid and are supported by their analysis.
This does not mean that future work, perhaps using new proxy records or different methods
for calibration or for estimating calibration uncertainties, will not change those
conclusions.  But it remains true that their conclusions are supported by their analysis.
As an example of a poor comparison, see the piece by Fred Pearce on page 5 of 12 July 2003
issue of New Scientist.  This is a short news article about the Mann and Jones paper, and
it unfortunately shows a comparison figure without the associated calibration
uncertainties.  That is not a good comparison.  I mention this in case you were thinking of
including a diagram in your article, perhaps showing the Mann and Jones results.  If you
do, then it will only be valid for comparing the recent instrumental temperatures with the
proxy-based reconstruction of earlier temperatures if the reconstruction uncertainties are
included.  Try to avoid the mistake that Fred Pearce made.
Regards
Tim
At 21:11 02/10/2003, Michael E. Mann wrote:
Dear Mr. Matthews,
Unfortunately Phil Jones is travelling and will probably be unable to offer a separate
reply. Since your comments involve work that is his as well, I have therefore taken the
liberty of copying your inquiry and this reply to several of his British colleagues.
The comparisons made in our  paper are well explained therein, and your statements belie
the clearly-stated qualifications in our conclusions with regard to separate analyses of
the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and globe.
An objective reading of our manuscript would readily reveal that the comments you refer
to are scurrilous. These comments have not been made by scientists in the peer-reviewed
literature, but rather, on a website that, according to published accounts, is run by
individuals  sponsored by ExxonMobile corportation, hardly an objective source of
information.
Owing to pressures on my time, I will not be able to respond to any further inquiries
from you. Given your extremely poor past record of reporting on climate change issues,
however, I will leave you with some final words. Professional journalists I am used to
dealing with do not rely upon un-peer-reviewed claims off internet sites for their
sources of information. They rely instead on peer-reviewed scientific research, and
mainstream, rather than fringe, scientific opinion.
Sincerely,
Michael E. Mann
At 08:30 PM 10/2/2003 +0100, Robert Matthews wrote:
Dear Professor Mann
I'm putting together a piece on global warming, and I'll be making reference to your
paper in Geophysical Research Letters
with Prof Jones on "Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia".
When the paper came out, some critics argued that the paper actually showed that there
have been three periods in the last 2000 years which were warmer than today (one just
prior to AD 700, one just after, and one just prior to AD 1000).  They also claimed that
the paper could only conclude that current temperatures were warmer if one compared the
proxy data with other data sets. (For an example of these arguments, see:
[1]
I'd be very interested to include your rebuttals to these arguments in the piece I'm
doing. I must admit to being confused by why proxy data should be compared to
instrumental data for the last part of the data-set. Shouldn't the comparison be a
consistent one throughout ?
With many thanks for your patience with this
Robert Matthews
References
1.