Ben,
Another point to discuss when you have your conference call  - is
why don't they ask Douglass for all his data. It is essentially the same.
You can also think of all this positively - they think a few of us do really
important work, so they concentrate on what they think are the cutting edge
pieces of work.
I have a big review on paleo coming out soon in The Holocene - with 20+ others.
Won't be out till next year, but I can say for certain that it will feature strongly on
CA. Not too much they can request via FOI, but they will think of something. This
paper will explain where a Figure came from in the First IPCC Report - the infamous
one that Chris Folland put together on the last 1000 yeas. CA will say they found this out
- they had
a thread on it 9 months ago according to Gavin. I have the submission date of the article
and more detail though - to show we found out first.
Cheers
Phil
At 03:57 12/11/2008, you wrote:
Dear Tom,
Thanks for your email regarding Steven McIntyre's twin requests under the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Act. Regarding McIntyre's request (1), no "monthly time series of
output from any of the 47 climate models" was "sent by Santer and/or other coauthors of
Santer et al 2008 to NOAA employees between 2006 and October 2008".
As I pointed out to Mr. McIntyre in the email I transmitted to him yesterday, all of the
raw (gridded) model and observational data used in the 2008 Santer et al. International
Journal of Climatology (IJoC) paper are freely available to Mr. McIntyre. If Mr.
McIntyre wishes to audit us, and determine whether the conclusions reached in our paper
are sound, he has all the information necessary to conduct such an audit. Providing Mr.
McIntyre with the quantities that I derived from the raw model data (spatially-averaged
time series of surface temperatures and synthetic Microwave Sounding Unit [MSU]
temperatures) would defeat the very purpose of an audit.
I note that David Douglass and colleagues have already audited our calculation of
synthetic MSU temperatures from climate model data. Douglass et al. obtained "model
average" trends in synthetic MSU temperatures (published in their 2007 IJoC paper) that
are virtually identical to our own.
McIntyre's request (2) demands "any correspondence concerning these monthly time series
between Santer and/or other coauthors of Santer et al 2008 and NOAA employees between
2006 and October 2008". I do not know how you intend to respond this second request. You
and three other NOAA co-authors on our paper (Susan Solomon, Melissa Free, and John
Lanzante) probably received hundreds of emails that I sent to you in the course of our
work on the IJoC paper. I note that this work began in December 2007, following online
publication of Douglass et al. in the IJoC. I have no idea why McIntyre's request for
email correspondence has a "start date" of 2006, and thus predates publication of
Douglass et al.
My personal opinion is that both FOI requests (1) and (2) are intrusive and
unreasonable. Steven McIntyre provides absolutely no scientific justification or
explanation for such requests. I believe that McIntyre is pursuing a calculated strategy
to divert my attention and focus away from research. As the recent experiences of Mike
Mann and Phil Jones have shown, this request is the thin edge of wedge. It will be
followed by further requests for computer programs, additional material and
explanations, etc., etc.
Quite frankly, Tom, having spent nearly 10 months of my life addressing the serious
scientific flaws in the Douglass et al. IJoC paper, I am unwilling to waste more of my
time fulfilling the intrusive and frivolous requests of Steven McIntyre. The supreme
irony is that Mr. McIntyre has focused his attention on our IJoC paper rather than the
Douglass et al. IJoC paper which we criticized. As you know, Douglass et al. relied on a
seriously flawed statistical test, and reached incorrect conclusions on the basis of
that flawed test.
I believe that our community should no longer tolerate the behavior of Mr. McIntyre and
his cronies. McIntyre has no interest in improving our scientific understanding of the
nature and causes of climate change. He has no interest in rational scientific
discourse. He deals in the currency of threats and intimidation. We should be able to
conduct our scientific research without constant fear of an "audit" by Steven McIntyre;
without having to weigh every word we write in every email we send to our scientific
colleagues.
In my opinion, Steven McIntyre is the self-appointed Joe McCarthy of climate science. I
am unwilling to submit to this McCarthy-style investigation of my scientific research.
As you know, I have refused to send McIntyre the "derived" model data he requests, since
all of the primary model data necessary to replicate our results are freely available to
him. I will continue to refuse such data requests in the future. Nor will I provide
McIntyre with computer programs, email correspondence, etc. I feel very strongly about
these issues. We should not be coerced by the scientific equivalent of a playground
bully.
I will be consulting LLNL's Legal Affairs Office in order to determine how the DOE and
LLNL should respond to any FOI requests that we receive from McIntyre. I assume that
such requests will be forthcoming.
I am copying this email to all co-authors of our 2008 IJoC paper, to my immediate
superior at PCMDI (Dave Bader), to Anjuli Bamzai at DOE headquarters, and to Professor
Glenn McGregor (the editor who was in charge of our paper at IJoC).
I'd be very happy to discuss these issues with you tomorrow. I'm sorry that the tone of
this letter is so formal, Tom. Unfortunately, after today's events, I must assume that
any email I write to you may be subject to FOI requests, and could ultimately appear on
McIntyre's "ClimateAudit" website.
With best personal wishes,
Ben
Thomas.R.Karl wrote:
FYI --- Jolene can you set up a conference call with all the parties listed below
including Ben.
Thanks
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        FOI Request
Date:   Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:02:00 -0500
From:   Steve McIntyre
To:     FOIA@noaa.gov
CC:     Thomas R Karl
Nov. 10, 2008
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Public Reference Facility (OFA56)
Attn: NOAA FOIA Officer
1315 East West Highway (SSMC3)
Room 10730
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
Re: Freedom of Information Act Request
Dear NOAA FOIA Officer:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Santer et al, Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in
the tropical troposphere, (Int J Climatology, 2008), of which NOAA employees J. R.
Lanzante,  S. Solomon, M. Free and T. R. Karl were co-authors, reported on a statistical
analysis of the output of 47 runs of climate models that had been collated into monthly
time series by Benjamin Santer and associates.
I request that a copy of the following NOAA records be provided to me: (1) any monthly
time series of output from any of the 47 climate models sent by Santer and/or other
coauthors of Santer et al 2008 to NOAA employees between 2006 and October 2008; (2) any
correspondence concerning these monthly time series between Santer and/or other
coauthors of Santer et al 2008 and NOAA employees between 2006 and October 2008.
The primary sources for NOAA records are J. R. Lanzante,  S. Solomon, M. Free and T. R.
Karl.
In order to help to determine my status for purposes of determining the applicability of
any fees, you should know that I have 5 peer-reviewed publications on paleoclimate; that
I was a reviewer for WG1; that I made a invited presentations in 2006 to the National
Research Council Panel on Surface Temperature Reconstructions and two presentations to
the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
In addition, a previous FOI request was discussed by the NOAA Science Advisory Boards
Data Archiving and Access Requirements Working Group (DAARWG). [1]http:// www.
joss.ucar.edu/daarwg/may07/presentations/KarL_DAARWG_NOAAArchivepolify-v0514.pdf.
I believe a fee waiver is appropriate since the purpose of the request is academic
research, the information exists in digital format and the information should be easily
located by the primary sources.
I also include a telephone number (416-469-3034) at which I can be contacted between 9
and 7 pm Eastern Daylight Time, if necessary, to discuss any aspect of my request.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
I ask that the FOI request be processed promptly as NOAA failed to send me a response to
the FOI request referred to above, for which Dr Karl apologized as follows:
due to a miscommunication between our office and our headquarters, the response was not
submitted to you. I deeply apologize for this oversight, and we have taken measures to
ensure this does not happen in the future.
Stephen McIntyre
25 Playter Blvd
Toronto, Ont M4K 2W1
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.


Gavin,
First the figures are just for you - don't pass on!!!  I don't normally see
these. I just asked my MOHC contact - and he's seen the furore on the blogs.
Why did the Daily Telegraph run with the story - it's all back to their readers
thinking the UK is run by another country!
These 3 paras (below) are from the GHCN web site. They appear to be the only mention
I can see of the WMO CLIMAT network on a web site.  The rigorous QC that is being talked
about is
done in retrospect. They don't do much in real time - except an outlier check.
Anyway - the CLIMAT network is part of the GTS. The members (NMSs) send
their monthly averages/total around the other NMSs on the 4th and the 18-20th
of the month afterwards. Few seem to adhere to these dates much these days, but
the aim is to send the data around twice in the following month. Data comes in
code like everything else on the GTS, so a few centres (probably a handful, NOAA/CPC,
MOHC, MeteoFrance, DWD, Roshydromet, CMA, JMA and the Australians)
that are doing analyses for weather forecasts have the software to pick out
the CLIMAT data and put it somewhere.
At the same time these same centres are taking the synop data off the system
and summing it to months - producing flags of how much was missing. At the
MOHC they compare the CLIMAT message with the monthly calculated average/total.
If they are close they accept the CLIMAT.  Some countries don't use the mean of
max and min (which the synops provide) to calculate the mean, so it is important
to use the CLIMAT as this is likely to ensure continuity. If they don't agree they
check the flags and there needs to be a bit of human intervention. The figures
are examples for this October.
What often happens is that countries send out the same data for the following month.
This happens mostly in developing countries, as a few haven't yet got software to
produce the CLIMAT data in the correct format. There is WMO software to
produce these from a wide variety of possible formats the countries might be using.
Some seem to do this by overwriting the files from the previous month. They
add in the correct data, but then forget to save the revised file. Canada did
this a few years ago - but they sent the correct data around a day later and again
the second time, after they got told by someone at MOHC.
My guess here is that NOAA didn't screw up, but that Russia did. For all countries
except Russia, all data for that country comes out together. For Russia it comes
out in regions - well it is a big place! Trying to prove this would need some Russian
help - Pasha Groisman? - but there isn't much point. The fact that all the affected
data were from one Russian region suggests to me it was that region.
Probably not of much use to an FAQ!
Cheers
Phil
The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN-Monthly) data base contains historical
temperature, precipitation, and pressure data for thousands of land stations worldwide. The
period of record varies from station to station, with several thousand extending back to
1950 and several hundred being updated monthly via CLIMAT reports. The data are available
without charge through NCDCs anonymous FTP service.
Both historical and near-real-time GHCN data undergo rigorous quality assurance reviews.
These reviews include preprocessing checks on source data, time series checks that identify
spurious changes in the mean and variance, spatial comparisons that verify the accuracy of
the climatological mean and the seasonal cycle, and neighbor checks that identify outliers
from both a serial and a spatial perspective.
GHCN-Monthly is used operationally by NCDC to monitor long-term trends in temperature and
precipitation. It has also been employed in several international climate assessments,
including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report, the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment, and the "State of the Climate" report published annually by the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
At 12:56 17/11/2008, you wrote:
thanks.
Actually, I don't think that many people have any idea how the NWS's
send out data, what data they send out, what they don't and how these
things are collated. Perhaps you'd like to send me some notes on this
that I could write up as a FAQ? Won't change anything much, but it would
be a handy reference....
gavin
On Mon, 2008-11-17 at 07:53, Phil Jones wrote:
> >  Gavin,
>         I may be getting touchy but the CA thread on the HadCRUt October 08
>   data seems full of snidey comments. Nice to see that they have very little
>   right. Where have they got the idea that the data each month come
>   from GHCN? There are the daily synops and the CLIMAT messages -
>   nothing to do with GHCN. All they have to do is read Brohan et al (2006)
>   and they can see this - and how we merge the land and marine! They
>   seem to have no idea about the Global Telecommunications System.
>       Anyway - expecting the proofs of the Wengen paper any day now.
>   Have already sent back loads of updated references and sorted out almost all
>   of the other reference problems.
>       When the paper comes out - not sure if The Holocene do online first -
>   happy for you to point out the publication dates (date first
> received etc) when
>   they scream that they sorted out that diagram from the first IPCC Report.
>
>      Don't know how you find the time to do all this responding- keep it up!
>
>   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
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ben,
I support you on this. However, there is more to be said than
what you give below. For instance, it would be useful to note
that, in principle, an audit scheme could be a good thing if done
properly. But an audit must start at square one (your point). So,
one can appear to applaud McIntyre at first, but then go on to
note that his modus operandi seems to be flawed.
In this case, as you have noted before, if Mc could not get the
data from us, then he could have got it from Douglass. Given this,
it is strange to keep hounding us. This would, of course, raise the
issue of whether the Douglass data are the same as ours (and/or the
same as in CCSP 1.1). I'm not sure whether Douglass et al. actually
state that there data are the same as CCSP 1.1, but it would be
good if they did -- because or IJoC data are the same as CCSP 1.1.
Mc could say that Douglass already effectively audited our calculations
from the raw data, which is why he does not want to/need to repeat
this step. But if he does say this then why not get the data from
Douglass?
Have a go at writing something -- but try to pre-empt any come back
from Mc or others. Also, don't just consider our case, but put it
as an example of more general issues.
The issue of auditing is a tricky one. The auditers must, themselves,
be able to demonstrate that they have no ulterior motives. One way
to do this would be to audit papers on both sides of an issue. In
other words, both us and Douglass should be audited together. In a
sense, our paper is an audit of Douglass -- and we found his work
to be flawed. A second opinion on this already exists, through the
refereeing of our paper. I suppose a third opinion from the likes
of Mc might be of value in a controversial area like this. But then,
is Mc the right person to do this? Is he unbiased? Does he have the
right credentials (as a statistician)?
One could argue that IPCC had an auditing system in place. This is
partly through the multiple levels of review -- but doesn't each
chapter have another person(s) to sign off on the responses to
review comments?
There are some interesting general issues here.
Tom.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm happy to co-author anything you write.
> Dear folks,
>
> There has been some additional fallout from the publication of our paper
> in the International Journal of Climatology. After reading Steven
> McIntyre's discussion of our paper on climateaudit.com (and reading
> about my failure to provide McIntyre with the data he requested), an
> official at DOE headquarters has written to Cherry Murray at LLNL,
> claiming that my behavior is bringing LLNL's good name into disrepute.
> Cherry is the Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology at
> LLNL, and reports to LLNL's Director (George Miller).
>
> I'm getting sick of this kind of stuff, and am tired of simply taking it
> on the chin.
>
> Accordingly, I have been trying to evaluate my options. I believe that
> one option is to write a letter to Nature, briefly outlining some of the
> events that have transpired subsequent to the publication of our IJoC
> paper. Nature would be a logical choice for such a letter, since they
> published a brief account of our findings in their "Research Highlights"
> section. The letter would provide some public record of my position
> regarding McIntyre's data request, and would note that:
>
> "all of the raw (gridded) model and observational data used in the 2008
> Santer et al. International Journal of Climatology (IJoC) paper are
> freely available to Mr. McIntyre. If Mr. McIntyre wishes to audit us,
> and determine whether the conclusions reached in our paper are sound, he
> has all the information necessary to conduct such an audit. Providing
> Mr. McIntyre with the quantities that I derived from the raw model data
> (spatially-averaged time series of surface temperatures and synthetic
> Microwave Sounding Unit [MSU] temperatures) would defeat the very
> purpose of an audit." (email from Ben Santer to Tom Karl, Nov. 11, 2008).
>
> I think that some form of public record would be helpful, particularly
> if LLNL management continues to receive emails alleging that my behavior
> is tarnishing LLNL's scientific reputation.
>
> Since it was my decision not to provide McIntyre with derived quantities
> (synthetic MSU temperatures), I'm perfectly happy to be the sole author
> of such a letter to Nature.
>
> Your thoughts or advice in this matter would be much appreciated.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Ben
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Benjamin D. Santer
> Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
> Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
> Tel:   (925) 422-3840
> FAX:   (925) 422-7675
> email: santer1@llnl.gov
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>


Ben, there are two very different things going on here. One is technical
and related to the actual science and the actual statistics, the second
is political, and is much more concerned with how incidents like this
can be portrayed. The second is the issue here.
The unfortunate fact is that the 'secret science' meme is an extremely
powerful rallying call to people who have no idea about what is going
on. Claiming (rightly or wrongly) that information is being hidden has a
huge amount of resonance (as you know), much more so than whether
Douglass et al know their statistical elbow from a hole in the ground.
Thus any increase in publicity on this - whether in the pages of Nature
or elsewhere - is much more likely to bring further negative fallout
despite your desire to clear the air. Whatever you say, it will still be
presented as you hiding data.
The contrarians have found that there is actually no limit to what you
can ask people for (raw data, intermediate steps, additional
calculations, residuals, sensitivity calculations, all the code, a
workable version of the code on any platform etc.), and like Somali
pirates they have found that once someone has paid up, they can always
shake them down again.
Thus, I would not advise any public statements on this. Instead, email
you immediate superiors and the director with a short statement along
the lines of what you suggest below (i.e. of course you want open
science, the data *are* in the public domain (with links) and calls for
more intermediate steps are just harassment to prevent scientists doing
what they are actually paid too). I wouldn't put in anything
specifically related to McIntyre.
A much more satisfying response would be to demonstrate how easy it is
to replicate the analysis in the paper starting from scratch using
openly available data (such as through Joe Sirott's portal) and the
simplest published MSU weighting function. If you can show that this can
be done in a couple of hours (or whatever), it makes the other side look
like incompetent amateurs. Maybe someone has a graduate student
available....?
Gavin
On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 15:52, Ben Santer wrote:
> Dear folks,
>
> There has been some additional fallout from the publication of our paper
> in the International Journal of Climatology. After reading Steven
> McIntyre's discussion of our paper on climateaudit.com (and reading
> about my failure to provide McIntyre with the data he requested), an
> official at DOE headquarters has written to Cherry Murray at LLNL,
> claiming that my behavior is bringing LLNL's good name into disrepute.
> Cherry is the Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology at
> LLNL, and reports to LLNL's Director (George Miller).
>
> I'm getting sick of this kind of stuff, and am tired of simply taking it
> on the chin.
>
> Accordingly, I have been trying to evaluate my options. I believe that
> one option is to write a letter to Nature, briefly outlining some of the
> events that have transpired subsequent to the publication of our IJoC
> paper. Nature would be a logical choice for such a letter, since they
> published a brief account of our findings in their "Research Highlights"
> section. The letter would provide some public record of my position
> regarding McIntyre's data request, and would note that:
>
> "all of the raw (gridded) model and observational data used in the 2008
> Santer et al. International Journal of Climatology (IJoC) paper are
> freely available to Mr. McIntyre. If Mr. McIntyre wishes to audit us,
> and determine whether the conclusions reached in our paper are sound, he
> has all the information necessary to conduct such an audit. Providing
> Mr. McIntyre with the quantities that I derived from the raw model data
> (spatially-averaged time series of surface temperatures and synthetic
> Microwave Sounding Unit [MSU] temperatures) would defeat the very
> purpose of an audit." (email from Ben Santer to Tom Karl, Nov. 11, 2008).
>
> I think that some form of public record would be helpful, particularly
> if LLNL management continues to receive emails alleging that my behavior
> is tarnishing LLNL's scientific reputation.
>
> Since it was my decision not to provide McIntyre with derived quantities
> (synthetic MSU temperatures), I'm perfectly happy to be the sole author
> of such a letter to Nature.
>
> Your thoughts or advice in this matter would be much appreciated.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Ben
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Benjamin D. Santer
> Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
> Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
> Tel:   (925) 422-3840
> FAX:   (925) 422-7675
> email: santer1@llnl.gov
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>


Ben,
When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide
by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions - one at a screen, to convince
them otherwise
showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were
dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school
- the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I've got to know the FOI
person quite well and the Chief Librarian - who deals with appeals. The VC is also
aware of what is going on - at least for one of the requests, but probably doesn't know
the number we're dealing with. We are in double figures.
One issue is that these requests aren't that widely known within the School. So
I don't know who else at UEA may be getting them. CRU is moving up the ladder of
requests at UEA though - we're way behind computing though.  We're away of
requests going to others in the UK - MOHC, Reading, DEFRA and Imperial College.
So spelling out all the detail to the LLNL management should be the first thing
you do. I hope that Dave is being supportive at PCMDI.
The inadvertent email I sent last month has led to a Data Protection Act request sent by
a certain Canadian, saying  that the email maligned his scientific credibility with his
peers!
If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn't yet) I am supposed to go through my emails
and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of
emails, so have very little - if anything at all. This legislation is different from the
FOI -
it is supposed to be used to find put why you might have a poor credit rating !
In response to FOI and EIR requests, we've put up some data - mainly paleo data.
Each request generally leads to more - to explain what we've put up. Every time, so
far, that hasn't led to anything being added - instead just statements saying read
what is in the papers and what is on the web site!  Tim Osborn sent one such
response (via the FOI person) earlier this week. We've never sent programs, any codes
and manuals.
In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise results will be out in 2 weeks time.
These are expensive to produce and take too much time, so from next year we'll
be moving onto a metric based system. The metrics will be # and amounts of grants,
papers and citations etc. I did flippantly suggest that the # of FOI requests you get
should be another.
When you look at CA, they only look papers from a handful of
people. They will start on another coming out in The Holocene early next year. Gavin
and Mike are on this with loads of others. I've told both exactly what will appear on
CA once they get access to it!
Cheers
Phil
At 01:17 03/12/2008, Ben Santer wrote:
Dear Tom,
I think that the idea of a Commentary in Science or Nature is a good one. Steve Sherwood
made a similar suggestion. I'd be perfectly happy NOT to be involved in such a
Commentary. My involvement would look too self-serving.
One of the problems is that I'm caught in a real Catch-22 situation. At present, I'm
damned and publicly vilified because I refused to provide McIntyre with the data he
requested. But had I acceded to McIntyre's initial request for climate model data, I'm
convinced (based on the past experiences of Mike Mann, Phil, and Gavin) that I would
have spent years of my scientific career dealing with demands for further explanations,
additional data, Fortran code, etc. (Phil has been complying with FOIA requests from
McIntyre and  his cronies for over two years). And if I ever denied a single request for
further information, McIntyre would have rubbed his hands gleefully and written: "You
see - he's guilty as charged!" on his website.
You and I have spent over a decade of our scientific careers on the MSU issue, Tom.
During much of that time, we've had to do science in "reactive mode", responding to the
latest outrageous claims and inept science by John Christy, David Douglass, or S. Fred
Singer. For the remainder of my scientific career, I'd like to dictate my own research
agenda. I don't want that agenda driven by the constant need to respond to Christy,
Douglass, and Singer. And I certainly don't want to spend years of my life interacting
with the likes of Steven McIntyre.
I hope LLNL management will provide me with their full support. If they do not, I'm
fully prepared to seek employment elsewhere.
With best regards,
Ben
Tom Wigley wrote:
Ben,
Re the idea Michael sent around (to Revkin et al.)
this is something that Nature or Science might like
as a Commentary. It might even be possible to include
some indirect reference to the Mc audit issue. The
notes I sent could be a starting point. One problem
is that you could not be first author as this would
look like garnering publicity for your own work (as
the 2 key papers are both Santer et al.) Even having
me as the first author may not work. An ideal person
would be Tom Karl, who sent me a response saying "nice
summary".
What do you think?
Tom.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Tom,
Obviously don't pass on!  These proofs have gone back with
about 60 changes to be made. Should be out first issue of 2009.
The bet is that CA will say they found that the IPCC Figure from 1990
was a Lamb diagram 6 months ago. They did, but they didn't
get the right source, and our paper was submitted in early 2008. CA
will also comment on the section on pp21-31. The summary of
where we are with the individual proxies is useful for most of them -
but we didn't get anyone working with speleothems involved. I
remain unconvinced they get the resolution claimed. Yet to see
a speleothem paper which doesn't compare their (individual site) reconstruction with
either the MBH series or a solar proxy.
I hope Ben gets the support from PCMDI and LLNL.
Cheers
Phil
Cheers
Phil
At 22:33 03/12/2008, you wrote:
Phil,
Thanks for all the information on the GISS etc. data.
Re below -- can you send me a preprint of the Holocene
paper.
Tom.
+++++++++++++++
>
>   Ben,
>      When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide
>   by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions - one at a
> screen, to convince them otherwise
>   showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the
> types of people we were
>   dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the
> Environmental Sciences school
>   - the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I've
> got to know the FOI
>   person quite well and the Chief Librarian - who deals with appeals.
> The VC is also
>   aware of what is going on - at least for one of the requests, but
> probably doesn't know
>   the number we're dealing with. We are in double figures.
>
>     One issue is that these requests aren't that widely known within
> the School. So
>   I don't know who else at UEA may be getting them. CRU is moving up
> the ladder of
>   requests at UEA though - we're way behind computing though.  We're away
> of
>   requests going to others in the UK - MOHC, Reading, DEFRA and
> Imperial College.
>
>     So spelling out all the detail to the LLNL management should be
> the first thing
>   you do. I hope that Dave is being supportive at PCMDI.
>
>     The inadvertent email I sent last month has led to a Data
> Protection Act request sent by
>   a certain Canadian, saying  that the email maligned his scientific
> credibility with his peers!
>   If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn't yet) I am supposed to go
> through my emails
>   and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months ago
> I deleted loads of
>   emails, so have very little - if anything at all. This legislation
> is different from the FOI -
>   it is supposed to be used to find put why you might have a poor
> credit rating !
>
>     In response to FOI and EIR requests, we've put up some data -
> mainly paleo data.
>   Each request generally leads to more - to explain what we've put
> up. Every time, so
>   far, that hasn't led to anything being added - instead just
> statements saying read
>   what is in the papers and what is on the web site!  Tim Osborn sent one
> such
>   response (via the FOI person) earlier this week. We've never sent
> programs, any codes
>   and manuals.
>
>     In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise results will be out
> in 2 weeks time.
>   These are expensive to produce and take too much time, so from next
> year we'll
>   be moving onto a metric based system. The metrics will be # and
> amounts of grants,
>   papers and citations etc. I did flippantly suggest that the # of
> FOI requests you get
>   should be another.
>
>       When you look at CA, they only look papers from a handful of
>   people. They will start on another coming out in The Holocene early
> next year. Gavin
>   and Mike are on this with loads of others. I've told both exactly
> what will appear on
>   CA once they get access to it!
>
>   Cheers
>   Phil
>
>
> At 01:17 03/12/2008, Ben Santer wrote:
>>Dear Tom,
>>
>>I think that the idea of a Commentary in Science or Nature is a good
>>one. Steve Sherwood made a similar suggestion. I'd be perfectly
>>happy NOT to be involved in such a Commentary. My involvement would
>>look too self-serving.
>>
>>One of the problems is that I'm caught in a real Catch-22 situation.
>>At present, I'm damned and publicly vilified because I refused to
>>provide McIntyre with the data he requested. But had I acceded to
>>McIntyre's initial request for climate model data, I'm convinced
>>(based on the past experiences of Mike Mann, Phil, and Gavin) that I
>>would have spent years of my scientific career dealing with demands
>>for further explanations, additional data, Fortran code, etc. (Phil
>>has been complying with FOIA requests from McIntyre and  his cronies
>>for over two years). And if I ever denied a single request for
>>further information, McIntyre would have rubbed his hands gleefully
>>and written: "You see - he's guilty as charged!" on his website.
>>
>>You and I have spent over a decade of our scientific careers on the
>>MSU issue, Tom. During much of that time, we've had to do science in
>>"reactive mode", responding to the latest outrageous claims and
>>inept science by John Christy, David Douglass, or S. Fred Singer.
>>For the remainder of my scientific career, I'd like to dictate my
>>own research agenda. I don't want that agenda driven by the constant
>>need to respond to Christy, Douglass, and Singer. And I certainly
>>don't want to spend years of my life interacting with the likes of
>>Steven McIntyre.
>>
>>I hope LLNL management will provide me with their full support. If
>>they do not, I'm fully prepared to seek employment elsewhere.
>>
>>With best regards,
>>
>>Ben
>>
>>Tom Wigley wrote:
>>>Ben,
>>>Re the idea Michael sent around (to Revkin et al.)
>>>this is something that Nature or Science might like
>>>as a Commentary. It might even be possible to include
>>>some indirect reference to the Mc audit issue. The
>>>notes I sent could be a starting point. One problem
>>>is that you could not be first author as this would
>>>look like garnering publicity for your own work (as
>>>the 2 key papers are both Santer et al.) Even having
>>>me as the first author may not work. An ideal person
>>>would be Tom Karl, who sent me a response saying "nice
>>>summary".
>>>What do you think?
>>>Tom.
>>
>>
>>--
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Benjamin D. Santer
>>Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
>>Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
>>P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
>>Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
>>Tel:   (925) 422-3840
>>FAX:   (925) 422-7675
>>email: santer1@llnl.gov
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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 all, I plan on sending the 'penultimate' draft of the full paper later today, but
thought I'd comment on the NH/SH comparison in a separate email. Anyway, I've been debating
adding a comparison of the NH and SH, as per your suggestions. But I think I'm going to
delay that discussion to a different paper. The current paper is already long. And I think
looking at the differences between the hemispheres is going to open a can of worms. Here is
an example that influenced my thinking: The time series in the attached figure show the
differences between the NH and SH mean (0-90N minus 0-90S) for the raw data (top) and
ENSO/COWL residual data (bottom). (COWL is removed only from the NH). Among many things,
the difference time series show that the cooling in the 70s is largest in the NH, which we
know from previous work. Maybe it's just my eye, but the differences between the time
series in the 70s look almost discrete. It's as if the NH ratcheted downwards relative to
the SH in a very short period ~1968, then crept upwards through the present. My thinking is
that we will get a lot of mileage out of comparing the hemispheres, but that to do it
right, it's going to take a fair bit more analysis. And at 27 pages I think we're pushing
the attention span of the average reader. So I'm going to delay the analysis to our next
paper. It gives us something to do in future! Paper will follow later... -Dave
-------------------------------------------------------------------- David W. J. Thompson
www.atmos.colostate.edu/~davet ï¿¼ Dept of Atmospheric Science Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA Phone: 970-491-3338 Fax: 970-491-8449 hi all,
I plan on sending the 'penultimate' draft of the full paper later today, but thought I'd
comment on the NH/SH comparison in a separate email.
Anyway, I've been debating adding  a comparison of the NH and SH, as per your suggestions.
But I think I'm going to delay that discussion to a different paper. The current paper is
already long. And I think looking at the differences between the hemispheres is going to
open a can of worms. Here is an example that influenced my thinking:
The time series in the attached figure show the differences between the NH and SH mean
(0-90N minus 0-90S) for the raw data (top) and ENSO/COWL residual data (bottom). (COWL is
removed only from the NH).
Among many things, the difference time series show that the cooling in the 70s is largest
in the NH, which we know from previous work. Maybe it's just my eye, but the differences
between the time series in the 70s look almost discrete. It's as if the NH ratcheted
downwards relative to the SH in a very short period ~1968, then crept upwards through the
present.
My thinking is that we will get a lot of mileage out of comparing the hemispheres, but that
to do it right, it's going to take a fair bit more analysis. And at 27 pages I think we're
pushing the attention span of the average reader. So I'm going to delay the analysis to our
next paper. It gives us something to do in future!
Paper will follow later...
-Dave
--------------------------------------------------------------------
David W. J. Thompson
www.atmos.colostate.edu/~davet
Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\NHandSHRawFullResidual.pdf"
Dept of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
USA
Phone: 970-491-3338
Fax: 970-491-8449


Ben,
Haven't got a reply from the FOI person here at UEA.  So I'm not
entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of checking would be
to look on CA, but I'm not doing that. I did get an email
from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails -
unless
this was 'normal' deleting to keep emails manageable! McIntyre hasn't
paid his £10, so nothing looks likely to happen re his Data Protection Act email.
Anyway requests have been of three types - observational data, paleo data
and who made IPCC changes and why. Keith has got all the latter - and
there have been at least 4. We made Susan aware of these - all came from
David Holland.  According to the FOI Commissioner's Office, IPCC is an
international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds
anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything
to do with our core business - and it doesn't!  I'm sounding like Sir Humphrey here!
McIntyre often gets others to do the requesting, but requests and responses
all get posted up on CA regardless of who sends them.
On observational data, there have been at least 5 including a couple from
McIntyre. Others here came from Eschenbach and also Douglas Keenan.
The latter relate to Wei-Chyung Wang, and despite his being exonerated by
SUNY, Keenan has not changed his web site since being told the result by SUNY!
[1]
The paleo data requests have all been to Keith, and here Tim and Keith reply.
The recent couple have come from McIntyre but there have been at least two
others from Holland.
So since Feb 2007, CRU is in double figures. We never get any thanks for putting
things up - only abuse and threats. The latest lot is up in the last 3-4 threads on
CA.
I got this email over the weekend - see end of this email. This relates to
what Tim sent back late last week. There was another one as well - a chatty
one saying why didn't I respond to keep these people on CA quiet. I've
ignored both.
Finally, I know that DEFRA receive Parliamentary Questions from MPs to
answer. One of these 2 months ago was from a Tory MP asking how much
money DEFRA has given to CRU over the last 5 years. DEFRA replied that they
don't give money - they award grants based on open competition. DEFRA's system
also told them there were no awards to CRU, as when we do get something it is
down as UEA!
I've occasionally checked DEFRA responses to FOI requests - all from Holland.
Cheers
Phil
Dear Mr Jones
What are you  frightened of?
Is it that suddenly mugs like me who pay our taxes suddenly realise we are paying your
wages.
Please respond to Climate Audit's valid queries otherwise I will contact my MP. Please see
below.
Quote From CA
As it happens, I have experience in mining exploration programs and I can assure Phil Jones
that, contray to this experience enabling me to "understand why some samples are excluded",
it gives me exactly the opposite perspective. It makes it virtually impossible for me to
think up valid explanations for "excluding" some samples. It's illegal in the businesses
that I know.
Anyhow, CRU answered as follows:
We have checked our files and no manuals, computer code, documents or correspondence
are available. We can confirm, however, that we did not use a different Omoloyla
data set and therefore there is no further data to provide.
Your behaviour is absoulutely outrageous.
Best regards
Stuart Harmon
At 01:48 09/12/2008, you wrote:
Dear Phil,
I had a quick question for you: What is the total number of FOIA requests that you've
received from Steven McIntyre?
With best regards,
Ben
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.


Dear Ben,
This is a good idea. However, will you give only tropical
(20N-20S) results? I urge you to give data for other zones
as well, viz, SH, NH, GL, 0-20N, 20-60N, 60-90N, 0-20S,
20-60S, 60-90S (plus 20N-20S). To have these numbers on
line would be of great benefit to the community. In other
words, although prompted by McIntyre's request, you will
actually be giving something to everyone.
Also, if you can give N3.4 SSTs and SOI data, this would be
an additional huge boon to the community.
For the data, what period will you cover. Although for our
paper we only use data from 1979 onwards, to give data for
the full 20th century runs would be of great benefit to all.
This, of course, raises the issue of drift. Even over 1979
to 1999 some models show appreciable drift. From memory we
did not account for this in our paper -- but it is an
important issue.
This is a lot of work -- but the benefits to the community
would be truly immense.
Finally, I think you need to formally get McIntyre to list
the 47 models that he wants the data for. The current request
is ambiguous -- or, at least, ill defined. I think it is
crucial for McIntyre to state specifically what he wants.
Even if we think we know what he wants, this is not good
enough -- FOIA requests must be clear, complete and
unambiguous. This, after all, is a legal issue, and no court
of law would accept anything less.
Tom.
++++++++++++++++++++
Ben Santer wrote:
> Dear co-authors,
>
> I just wanted to alert you to the fact that Steven McIntyre has now made
> a request to U.S. DOE Headquarters under the Freedom of Information Act
> (FOIA). McIntyre asked for "Monthly average T2LT values for the 47
> climate models (sic) as used to test the H1 hypothesis in Santer et al.,
> Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical
> troposphere". I was made aware of the FOIA request earlier this morning.
>
> McIntyre's request eventually reached the U.S. DOE National Nuclear
> Security Administration (NNSA), Livermore Site Office. The requested
> records are to be provided to the "FOIA Point of Contact" (presumably at
> NNSA) by Dec. 22, 2008.
>
> McIntyre's request is poorly-formulated and misleading. As noted in the
> Santer et al. paper cited by McIntyre, we examined "a set of 49
> simulations of twentieth century climate change performed with 19
> different models". McIntyre confuses the number of 20th century
> realizations analyzed in our paper (49, not 47!) with the number of
> climate models used to generate those realizations (19). This very basic
> mistake does not inspire one with confidence about McIntyre's
> understanding of climate models, or his ability to undertake meaningful
> analysis of climate model results.
>
> Over the past several weeks, I've had a number of discussions about the
> "FOIA issue" with PCMDI's Director (Dave Bader), with other LLNL
> colleagues, and with colleagues outside of the Lab. Based on these
> discussions, I have decided to "publish" all of the climate model
> surface temperature time series and synthetic MSU time series (for the
> tropical lower troposphere [T2LT] and the tropical mid- to
> upper-troposphere [T2]) that we used in our International Journal of
> Climatology (IJoC) paper. This will involve putting these datasets
> through an internal "Review and Release" procedure, and then placing the
> datasets on PCMDI's publicly-accessible website. The website will also
> provide information on how synthetic Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU)
> temperatures were calculated, anomaly definition, analysis periods, etc.
>
> After publication of the model data, we will inform the "FOIA Point of
> Contact" that the information requested by McIntyre is publicly
> available for bona fide scientific research.
>
> Unfortunately, we cannot guard against intentional or unintentional
> misuse of these datasets by McIntyre or others.
>
> By publishing the T2, T2LT, and surface temperature data, we will be
> providing far more than the "Monthly average T2LT values" mentioned in
> McIntyre's FOIA request to DOE. This will make it difficult for McIntyre
> to continue making the bogus claim that he is being denied access to the
> climate model data necessary to evaluate the validity of our findings.
> All of the raw model output used in our IJoC paper are already available
> to Mr. McIntyre (as I informed him several months ago), as are the
> algorithms required to calculate synthetic MSU temperatures from raw
> model temperature data.
>
> I hope that "publication" of the synthetic MSU temperatures resolves
> this matter to the satisfaction of NNSA, DOE Headquarters, and LLNL.
>
> With best regards,
>
> Ben
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Benjamin D. Santer
> Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
> Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
> Tel:   (925) 422-3840
> FAX:   (925) 422-7675
> email: santer1@llnl.gov
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>


Allan,
I was leaving that for Brian Reid or Paul Burton here.
Cheers
Phil
At 13:32 19/12/2008, Allan Astrup Jensen wrote:
Fine, do you know how status is with WP14?
Allan Astrup Jensen
Technical Vice President
Secretariat for Quality Management and Metrology
FORCE Technology, Brøndby
Park Allé 345
2605 Brøndby
Denmark
Phone: +45 43 26 70 00
Direct: +45 43 26 70 81
Mobile: +45 40 94 10 22
Fax: +45 43 26 70 11
e-mail: aaj@force.dk
www: [2]www.forcetechnology.com
*********************************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential
information intended for the addressee(s) only. The information is not to be
surrendered or copied to unauthorised persons. If you have received
this communication in error, please notify us immediately by email at:
info@forcetechnology.com
*********************************************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Jones [[4]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
Sent: 19. december 2008 14:29
To: Allan Astrup Jensen; Stefan Reimann
Cc: lu xiaoxia
Subject: RE: WP8 added text and additional person from CMA
Stefan,
Can you contact your person, as they are more senior to mine?
I'll make modifications to WP8 and get it back to Allan.
Cheers
Phil
At 13:12 19/12/2008, Allan Astrup Jensen wrote:
>First you should contact them and hear if they
>would be interested, they may be occupied by
>another proposal. If they are ready, they should
>send me urgently their ½ pages descriptions of
>each and CMA, their PIC no., email and salary.
>May be Peking University know them. We add them then as partner no. 21.
>
>Yours truly,
>
>Allan Astrup Jensen
>
>Technical Vice President
>Secretariat for Quality Management and Metrology
>
>FORCE Technology, Brøndby
>Park Allé 345
>2605 Brøndby
>Denmark
>
>Phone: +45 43 26 70 00
>Direct: +45 43 26 70 81
>Mobile: +45 40 94 10 22
>Fax: +45 43 26 70 11
>e-mail: aaj@force.dk
>www: [6]www.forcetechnology.com
>
>*********************************************************************************
>This email and any files transmitted with it may contain confidential
>information intended for the addressee(s) only. The information is not to be
>surrendered or copied to unauthorised persons. If you have received
>this communication in error, please notify us
>immediately by email at: info@forcetechnology.com
>*********************************************************************************
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stefan Reimann [[8]mailto:Stefan.Reimann@empa.ch]
>Sent: 19. december 2008 13:51
>To: Allan Astrup Jensen; Phil Jones
>Subject: WP8 added text and additional person from CMA
>
>Dear Allan, Phil and Bill,
>I have added some text concerning greenhouse gas and air pollution monitoring.
>
>I hope that this is precise enough.
>
>I also have an extremely good contact in CMA. Prof. Lingxi Zhou,
>CMA, CAWAS (Center for Atmosphere Watch and Services)
>Further,
>she has been newly elected into the bureau of
>the task force in National greenhouse gas inventories of IPCC
>
>[9]
>
>I suggest that we have  Phils and our contact
>from CMA included ( Zhongwei Yan and Lingxi
>Zhou). Can you please tell me if this is ok?
>
>Stefan
>
>Stefan Reimann
>Empa - Materials Science & Technology
>Ueberlandstr.129
>8600 Duebendorf
>Switzerland
>Tel:0041 (0)44823 46 38
>Fax:0041 (0)44821 62 44
>e-mail stefan.reimann@empa.ch
>[10]
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. mailto:aaj@force.dk
2.
3.
4. mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk
5. mailto:aaj@force.dk
6.
7.
8. mailto:Stefan.Reimann@empa.ch
9.
10.


Dear Lisa,
That's great news! I've confirmed with DOE that I can use up to $10,000
of my DOE Fellowship to provide financial support for Tom's Symposium. I
will check with Anjuli Bamzai at DOE to determine whether there are any
strings attached to this money. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to use
the DOE money for the Symposium dinner, and to defray some of the travel
expenses of international participants who can't come up with their own
travel money. I'll try to resolve this question in the next few days.
Best wishes to you and your family for a very Merry Christmas, and a
happy, healthy, and peaceful 2009!
Ben
Lisa Butler wrote:
> Hi Ben,
> Sorry for the slow reply -- I had to check on a few things, but yes, now
> I can agree that June 19th seems like a good bet for our Wigley
> Symposium. CCSM in Breckenridge will adjourn sometime on Thursday
> afternoon, 6/18.
>
> For June 19 I reserved the Main Seminar Room at the Mesa from 8:00 AM -
> 5:30 PM and the Damon Room (for a reception) from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM. Of
> course we can tweak these times as we get closer if need be.
>
> After the holidays I work up a rough draft budget for the catering and
> see what, if any,  financial help we might be able to get from CGD
> and/or NCAR Directorate.
>
> Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
> Lisa
>
> Ben Santer wrote:
>> Dear Tom,
>>
>> I think we agreed that your symposium would be after the 2009 CCSM
>> Workshop in Breckenridge, which will take place during the week of
>> June 15th. I do not yet have the exact dates of the CCSM meeting - I
>> don't know whether it ends on Thursday, June 18th. I suspect it will.
>> In the past, CCSM Workshops have generally started on a Tuesday and
>> ended on a Thursday. So my guess is that Friday, June 19th would
>> probably be our best bet for your symposium. CCSM Workshops are
>> usually preceded by a Monday meeting of the CCSM Scientific Steering
>> Committee, CCSM Working Group Co-Chairs, and CCSM Advisory Board. As a
>> Co-Chair of the Climate Change Working Group, I would be involved in
>> this Monday meeting.
>>
>> I'm copying Lisa on this email, in order to check whether Friday, June
>> 19th is a good date for the symposium.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Ben
>> Tom Wigley wrote:
>>> Ben,
>>>
>>> Did you get my email about papers on averaging of
>>> model results? Do you want me to email the papers?
>>>
>>> Is there a date for my symposium? Have you invited
>>> anyone? Shall I make a priority list? This would/could
>>> be based on ...
>>>
>>> (1) A balance of sub-disciplines so as to have the
>>> potential to produce a useful book
>>>
>>> (2) Importance of topics, perhaps determined via
>>> citations of related papers by the invited participants
>>>
>>> (3) Closeness to me personally
>>>
>>> (4) Numbers of jointly authored papers
>>>
>>> --------------
>>>
>>> So, e.g., there would have to be presentations by you
>>> and Phil. Also (as a close friend) Tim -- on paleoclimate
>>> in general I guess rather than just isotopes in speleothems.
>>> He could easily slot in some cool caving stuff.
>>>
>>> Jerry Meehl on AOGCMs. Malte and/or Sarah on UD EBMs.
>>> (But how to get some SCENGEN in? ... as this is almost
>>> totally my work.)
>>>
>>> Rob Wilby on downscaling.
>>>
>>> Niel Plummer would be nice to invite, but I'm not sure
>>> how he would fit in subject wise.
>>>
>>> Peter Foukal (or Claus Frohlich) on the Sun -- altho I've not
>>> worked much with them, this is an important subject area.
>>>
>>> Caspar on volcanoes.
>>>
>>> Also, Jean Palutikof on impacts and adaptation (her new Oz
>>> job is focussed on adaaptation).
>>>
>>> I'm just thinking out loud here. Might be good to talk about
>>> this soon.
>>>
>>> ---------------
>>>
>>> But in the meantime -- what is the proposed date?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Chris,  cc: Doug
Mike McCracken makes a fair point. I am no expert on the observational
uncertainties in tropospheric SO2 emissions over the recent past, but it
is certainly the case that the SRES A1B scenario (for instance) as seen
by different integrated assessment models shows a range of
possibilities. In fact this has been an issue for us in the ENSEMBLES
project, since we have been running models with a new
mitigation/stabilization scenario "E1" (that has large emissions
reductions relative to an A1B baseline, generated using the IMAGE IAM)
and comparing it with A1B (the AR4 marker version, generated by a
different IAM). The latter has a possibly unrealistic secondary SO2
emissions peak in the early 21st C - not present in the IMAGE E1
scenario, which has a steady decline in SO2 emissions from 2000. The A1B
scenario as generated with IMAGE also show a decline rather than the
secondary emissions peak, but I can't say for sure which is most likely
to be "realistic".
The impact of the two alternative SO2 emissions trajectories is quite
marked though in terms of global temperature response in the first few
decades of the 21st C (at least in our HadGEM2-AO simulations,
reflecting actual aerosol forcings in that model plus some divergence in
GHG forcing). Ironically, the E1-IMAGE scenario runs, although much
cooler in the long term of course, are considerably warmer than A1B-AR4
for several decades! Also - relevant to your statement - A1B-AR4 runs
show potential for a distinct lack of warming in the early 21st C, which
I'm sure skeptics would love to see replicated in the real world... (See
the attached plot for illustration but please don't circulate this any
further as these are results in progress, not yet shared with other
ENSEMBLES partners let alone published). We think the different short
term warming responses are largely attributable to the different SO2
emissions trajectories.
So far we've run two realisations of both the E1-IMAGE and A1B-AR4
scenarios with HadGEM2-AO, and other partners in ENSEMBLES are doing
similar runs using other GCMs. Results will start to be analysed in a
multi-model way in the next few months. CMIP5 (AR5) prescribes similar
kinds of experiments, but the implementation details might well be
different from ENSEMBLES experiments wrt scenarios and their SO2
emissions trajectories (I haven't studied the CMIP5 experiment fine
print to that extent).
Cheers,
Tim
On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 21:31 +0000, Folland, Chris wrote:
> Tim and Doug
>
> Please see McCrackens email.
>
> We are now using the average of 4 AR4 scenarios you gave us for GHG + aerosol. What is the situation likely to be for AR5 forcing, particularly anthropogenic aerosols. Are there any new estimates yet? Pareticularly, will there be a revision in time for the 2010 forecast? We do in the meantime have an explanation for the interannual variability of the last decade. However this fits well only when an underlying net GHG+aerosol warming of 0.15C per decade is fitted in the statistical models. In a sense the methods we use would automatically fit to a reduced net warming rate so Mike McCracken can be told that. In other words the method creates it own transient climate sensitivity for recent warming. But the forcing rate underlying the method nevertheless perhaps sits a bit uncomfortably with the absolute forcing figures we are using from AR4. However having said this, interestingly, the statistics and DePreSys are in remarkable harmony about the temperature of 2009.
>
> Any guidance welcome
>
> Chris
>
>
> Prof. Chris Folland
> Research Fellow, Seasonal to Decadal Forecasting (from 2 June 2008)
>
> Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon  EX1 3PB United Kingdom
> Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
> Fax: (in UK)  0870 900 5050
>         (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)
>
> Fellow of the Met Office
> Hon. Professor of School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike MacCracken
> Sent: 03 January 2009 16:44
> To: Phil Jones; Folland, Chris
> Cc: John Holdren; Rosina Bierbaum
> Subject: Temperatures in 2009
>
> Dear Phil and Chris--
>
> Your prediction for 2009 is very interesting (see note below for notice that went around to email list for a lot of US Congressional staff)--and I would expect the analysis you have done is correct. But, I have one nagging question, and that is how much SO2/sulfate is being generated by the rising emissions from China and India (I know that at least some plants are using desulfurization--but that antidotes are not an inventory). I worry that what the western nations did in the mid 20th century is going to be what the eastern nations do in the next few decades--go to tall stacks so that, for the near-term, "dilution is the solution to pollution". While I understand there are efforts to get much better inventories of CO2 emissions from these nations, when I asked a US EPA representative if their efforts were going to also inventory SO2 emissions (amount and height of emission), I was told they were not. So, it seems, the scientific uncertainty generated by not having good data from the mid-20th century is going to be repeated in the early 21st century (satellites may help on optical depth, but it would really help to know what is being emitted).
>
> That there is a large potential for a cooling influence is sort of evident in the IPCC figure about the present sulfate distribution--most is right over China, for example, suggesting that the emissions are near the surface--something also that is, so to speak, 'clear' from the very poor visibility and air quality in China and India. So, the quick, fast, cheap fix is to put the SO2 out through tall stacks. The cooling potential also seems quite large as the plume would go out over the ocean with its low albedo--and right where a lot of water vapor is evaporated, so maybe one pulls down the water vapor feedback a little and this amplifies the sulfate cooling influence.
>
> Now, I am not at all sure that having more tropospheric sulfate would be a bad idea as it would limit warming--I even have started suggesting that the least expensive and quickest geoengineering approach to limit global warming would be to enhance the sulfate loading--or at the very least we need to maintain the current sulfate cooling offset while we reduce CO2 emissions (and presumably therefore, SO2 emissions, unless we manage things) or we will get an extra bump of warming. Sure, a bit more acid deposition, but it is not harmful over the ocean (so we only/mainly emit for trajectories heading out over the ocean) and the impacts of deposition may well be less that for global warming (will be a tough comparison, but likely worth looking at). Indeed, rather than go to stratospheric sulfate injections, I am leaning toward tropospheric, but only during periods when trajectories are heading over ocean and material won't get rained out for  10 days or so.
> Would be an interesting issue to do research on--see what could be done.
>
> In any case, if the sulfate hypothesis is right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong. I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability--that explanation is wearing thin. I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong. Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us--the world is really cooling, the models are no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue.
>
> We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
>
> Best, Mike MacCracken
>
>
> Researchers Say 2009 to Be One of Warmest Years on Record
>
> On December 30, climate scientists from the UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia projected 2009 will be one of the top five warmest years on record.  Average global temperatures for 2009 are predicted to be 0.4°C above the 1961-1990 average of 14 º C. A multiyear forecast using a Met Office climate model indicates a ³rapid return of global temperature to the long-term warming trend,² with an increasing probability of record temperatures after 2009. ³The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away . . . . What matters is the underlying rate of warming,² said Dr. Phil Jones, the director of climate research at the University of East Anglia.  The presence of La Nina during the last year partially masked this underlying rate.  ³Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence on global surface temperature,² said Dr. Chris Folland of the Met Office Hadley Center.
> ³Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Nino develops.²  The transition from a La Nina effect to an El Nino one is expected late next year.
>
> For additional information see:
>
>
> older-than-in-Iceland.html
>
>
>
>
--
Tim Johns   Manager Global Coupled Modelling
Met Office   Hadley Centre
FitzRoy Rd   Exeter  Devon  EX1 3PB   United Kingdom
Tel:  +44 (0)1392 886901   Fax:  +44 (0)1392 885681
E-mail: tim.johns@metoffice.gov.uk
Please note I work part time, normally Monday-Tuesday Thursday-Friday
Met Office climate change predictions can now be viewed on Google Earth

Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\wave.gif"


Tim, Chris,
I hope you're not right about the lack of warming lasting
till about 2020. I'd rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
press release with Doug's paper that said something like -
half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998!
Still a way to go before 2014.
I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
where's the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.
Chris - I presume the Met Office continually monitor the weather forecasts.
Maybe because I'm in my 50s, but the language used in the forecasts seems
a bit over the top re the cold. Where I've been for the last 20 days (in Norfolk)
it doesn't seem to have been as cold as the forecasts.
I've just submitted a paper on the UHI for London - it is 1.6 deg C for the LWC.
It comes out to 2.6 deg C for night-time minimums. The BBC forecasts has
the countryside 5-6 deg C cooler than city centres on recent nights. The paper
shows the UHI hasn't got any worse since 1901 (based on St James Park
and Rothamsted).
Cheers
Phil
At 09:34 05/01/2009, Tim Johns wrote:
Dear Chris,  cc: Doug
Mike McCracken makes a fair point. I am no expert on the observational
uncertainties in tropospheric SO2 emissions over the recent past, but it
is certainly the case that the SRES A1B scenario (for instance) as seen
by different integrated assessment models shows a range of
possibilities. In fact this has been an issue for us in the ENSEMBLES
project, since we have been running models with a new
mitigation/stabilization scenario "E1" (that has large emissions
reductions relative to an A1B baseline, generated using the IMAGE IAM)
and comparing it with A1B (the AR4 marker version, generated by a
different IAM). The latter has a possibly unrealistic secondary SO2
emissions peak in the early 21st C - not present in the IMAGE E1
scenario, which has a steady decline in SO2 emissions from 2000. The A1B
scenario as generated with IMAGE also show a decline rather than the
secondary emissions peak, but I can't say for sure which is most likely
to be "realistic".
The impact of the two alternative SO2 emissions trajectories is quite
marked though in terms of global temperature response in the first few
decades of the 21st C (at least in our HadGEM2-AO simulations,
reflecting actual aerosol forcings in that model plus some divergence in
GHG forcing). Ironically, the E1-IMAGE scenario runs, although much
cooler in the long term of course, are considerably warmer than A1B-AR4
for several decades! Also - relevant to your statement - A1B-AR4 runs
show potential for a distinct lack of warming in the early 21st C, which
I'm sure skeptics would love to see replicated in the real world... (See
the attached plot for illustration but please don't circulate this any
further as these are results in progress, not yet shared with other
ENSEMBLES partners let alone published). We think the different short
term warming responses are largely attributable to the different SO2
emissions trajectories.
So far we've run two realisations of both the E1-IMAGE and A1B-AR4
scenarios with HadGEM2-AO, and other partners in ENSEMBLES are doing
similar runs using other GCMs. Results will start to be analysed in a
multi-model way in the next few months. CMIP5 (AR5) prescribes similar
kinds of experiments, but the implementation details might well be
different from ENSEMBLES experiments wrt scenarios and their SO2
emissions trajectories (I haven't studied the CMIP5 experiment fine
print to that extent).
Cheers,
Tim
On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 21:31 +0000, Folland, Chris wrote:
> Tim and Doug
>
> Please see McCrackens email.
>
> We are now using the average of 4 AR4 scenarios you gave us for GHG + aerosol. What is
the situation likely to be for AR5 forcing, particularly anthropogenic aerosols. Are
there any new estimates yet? Pareticularly, will there be a revision in time for the
2010 forecast? We do in the meantime have an explanation for the interannual variability
of the last decade. However this fits well only when an underlying net GHG+aerosol
warming of 0.15C per decade is fitted in the statistical models. In a sense the methods
we use would automatically fit to a reduced net warming rate so Mike McCracken can be
told that. In other words the method creates it own transient climate sensitivity for
recent warming. But the forcing rate underlying the method nevertheless perhaps sits a
bit uncomfortably with the absolute forcing figures we are using from AR4. However
having said this, interestingly, the statistics and DePreSys are in remarkable harmony
about the temperature of 2009.
>
> Any guidance welcome
>
> Chris
>
>
> Prof. Chris Folland
> Research Fellow, Seasonal to Decadal Forecasting (from 2 June 2008)
>
> Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon  EX1 3PB United Kingdom
> Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
> Fax: (in UK)  0870 900 5050
>         (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)
>
> Fellow of the Met Office
> Hon. Professor of School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike MacCracken [[2]mailto:mmaccrac@comcast.net]
> Sent: 03 January 2009 16:44
> To: Phil Jones; Folland, Chris
> Cc: John Holdren; Rosina Bierbaum
> Subject: Temperatures in 2009
>
> Dear Phil and Chris--
>
> Your prediction for 2009 is very interesting (see note below for notice that went
around to email list for a lot of US Congressional staff)--and I would expect the
analysis you have done is correct. But, I have one nagging question, and that is how
much SO2/sulfate is being generated by the rising emissions from China and India (I know
that at least some plants are using desulfurization--but that antidotes are not an
inventory). I worry that what the western nations did in the mid 20th century is going
to be what the eastern nations do in the next few decades--go to tall stacks so that,
for the near-term, "dilution is the solution to pollution". While I understand there are
efforts to get much better inventories of CO2 emissions from these nations, when I asked
a US EPA representative if their efforts were going to also inventory SO2 emissions
(amount and height of emission), I was told they were not. So, it seems, the scientific
uncertainty generated by not having good data from the mid-20th century is going to be
repeated in the early 21st century (satellites may help on optical depth, but it would
really help to know what is being emitted).
>
> That there is a large potential for a cooling influence is sort of evident in the IPCC
figure about the present sulfate distribution--most is right over China, for example,
suggesting that the emissions are near the surface--something also that is, so to speak,
'clear' from the very poor visibility and air quality in China and India. So, the quick,
fast, cheap fix is to put the SO2 out through tall stacks. The cooling potential also
seems quite large as the plume would go out over the ocean with its low albedo--and
right where a lot of water vapor is evaporated, so maybe one pulls down the water vapor
feedback a little and this amplifies the sulfate cooling influence.
>
> Now, I am not at all sure that having more tropospheric sulfate would be a bad idea as
it would limit warming--I even have started suggesting that the least expensive and
quickest geoengineering approach to limit global warming would be to enhance the sulfate
loading--or at the very least we need to maintain the current sulfate cooling offset
while we reduce CO2 emissions (and presumably therefore, SO2 emissions, unless we manage
things) or we will get an extra bump of warming. Sure, a bit more acid deposition, but
it is not harmful over the ocean (so we only/mainly emit for trajectories heading out
over the ocean) and the impacts of deposition may well be less that for global warming
(will be a tough comparison, but likely worth looking at). Indeed, rather than go to
stratospheric sulfate injections, I am leaning toward tropospheric, but only during
periods when trajectories are heading over ocean and material won't get rained out for
10 days or so.
> Would be an interesting issue to do research on--see what could be done.
>
> In any case, if the sulfate hypothesis is right, then your prediction of warming might
end up being wrong. I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over
past decade as a result of variability--that explanation is wearing thin. I would just
suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate
issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong.
Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us--the world is really cooling, the models are
no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue.
>
> We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
>
> Best, Mike MacCracken
>
>
> Researchers Say 2009 to Be One of Warmest Years on Record
>
> On December 30, climate scientists from the UK Met Office and the University of East
Anglia projected 2009 will be one of the top five warmest years on record.  Average
global temperatures for 2009 are predicted to be 0.4°C above the 1961-1990 average of 14
º C. A multiyear forecast using a Met Office climate model indicates a ³rapid return of
global temperature to the long-term warming trend,² with an increasing probability of
record temperatures after 2009. ³The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records
does not mean that global warming has gone away . . . . What matters is the underlying
rate of warming,² said Dr. Phil Jones, the director of climate research at the
University of East Anglia.  The presence of La Nina during the last year partially
masked this underlying rate.  ³Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant
influence on global surface temperature,² said Dr. Chris Folland of the Met Office
Hadley Center.
> ³Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Nino develops.²  The
transition from a La Nina effect to an El Nino one is expected late next year.
>
> For additional information see:
> [3]
> [4]
> older-than-in-Iceland.html
> [5]
> [6]
>
>
--
Tim Johns   Manager Global Coupled Modelling
Met Office   Hadley Centre
FitzRoy Rd   Exeter  Devon  EX1 3PB   United Kingdom
Tel:  +44 (0)1392 886901   Fax:  +44 (0)1392 885681
E-mail: tim.johns@metoffice.gov.uk   [7]
Please note I work part time, normally Monday-Tuesday Thursday-Friday
Met Office climate change predictions can now be viewed on Google Earth
[8]
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. mailto:mmaccrac@comcast.net
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.


Phil
Maybe in your conclusions you should comment on the fact that some more general studies show relationships between the population or size of cities and the urban effect. This seems not to be true here. Is there any evidence from other studies of a "saturation effect" on urban warming in some cases? And why this might be so?
Chris
Prof. Chris Folland
Research Fellow, Seasonal to Decadal Forecasting (from 2 June 2008)
Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon  EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
Fax: (in UK)  0870 900 5050
(International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)
Fellow of the Met Office
Hon. Professor of School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Jones
Sent: 05 January 2009 17:02
To: Folland, Chris
Subject: RE: FW: Temperatures in 2009
Chris,
Will look at later. Here is the UHI paper I submitted today to Weather.
Didn't take long to do. I started doing it as people kept on saying the UHI
in London (and this is only Central London) was getting worse. I couldn't
see it and Rothamsted and Wisley confirmed what I'd thought.
Any comments appreciated. Remember it is just Weather,
and I tried to make it quite simple !  David did see it last month.
Cheers
Phil
At 16:46 05/01/2009, you wrote:
>Phil
>
>Strictly very much in confidence, this was submitted to Nature
>Geosciences just before Xmas after discussion with them.
>
>Night-time temperatures seem to have been rather underestimated here as
>well since the cold spell started. Daytime forecasts have been better,
>allowing for 1000 feet of elevation. Real cold would shock all under 30!
>
>Chris
>
>
>Prof. Chris Folland
>Research Fellow, Seasonal to Decadal Forecasting (from 2 June 2008)
>
>Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon  EX1 3PB United
>Kingdom
>Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
>Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
>Fax: (in UK)  0870 900 5050
>         (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)
>
Fellow of the Met Office Hon. Professor
>of School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Phil Jones
>Sent: 05 January 2009 16:18
>To: Johns, Tim; Folland, Chris
>Cc: Smith, Doug; Johns, Tim
>Subject: Re: FW: Temperatures in 2009
>
>
>   Tim, Chris,
>     I hope you're not right about the lack of warming lasting
>   till about 2020. I'd rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
>   press release with Doug's paper that said something like -
>   half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on
> record, 1998!
>     Still a way to go before 2014.
>
>     I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
>   where's the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
>   scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.
>
>     Chris - I presume the Met Office
> continually monitor the weather forecasts.
>    Maybe because I'm in my 50s, but the language used in the forecasts seems
>    a bit over the top re the cold. Where I've been for the last 20
> days (in Norfolk)
>    it doesn't seem to have been as cold as the forecasts.
>
>     I've just submitted a paper on the UHI for London - it is 1.6 deg
> C for the LWC.
>   It comes out to 2.6 deg C for night-time minimums. The BBC forecasts has
>   the countryside 5-6 deg C cooler than city centres on recent nights.
> The paper
>   shows the UHI hasn't got any worse since 1901 (based on St James Park
>   and Rothamsted).
>
>   Cheers
>   Phil
>
>
>
>At 09:34 05/01/2009, Tim Johns wrote:
> >Dear Chris,  cc: Doug
> >
> >Mike McCracken makes a fair point. I am no expert on the
> >observational uncertainties in tropospheric SO2 emissions over the
> >recent past, but it is certainly the case that the SRES A1B scenario
> >(for instance) as seen by different integrated assessment models
> >shows a range of possibilities. In fact this has been an issue for us
> >in the ENSEMBLES project, since we have been running models with a
> >new mitigation/stabilization scenario "E1" (that has large emissions
> >reductions relative to an A1B baseline, generated using the IMAGE
> >IAM) and comparing it with A1B (the AR4 marker version, generated by
> >a different IAM). The latter has a possibly unrealistic secondary SO2
> >emissions peak in the early 21st C - not present in the IMAGE E1
> >scenario, which has a steady decline in SO2 emissions from 2000. The
> >A1B scenario as generated with IMAGE also show a decline rather than
> >the secondary emissions peak, but I can't say for sure which is most
> >likely to be "realistic".
> >
> >The impact of the two alternative SO2 emissions trajectories is quite
> >marked though in terms of global temperature response in the first
> >few decades of the 21st C (at least in our HadGEM2-AO simulations,
> >reflecting actual aerosol forcings in that model plus some divergence
> >in GHG forcing). Ironically, the E1-IMAGE scenario runs, although
> >much cooler in the long term of course, are considerably warmer than
> >A1B-AR4 for several decades! Also - relevant to your statement -
> >A1B-AR4 runs show potential for a distinct lack of warming in the
> >early 21st C, which I'm sure skeptics would love to see replicated in
> >the real world... (See the attached plot for illustration but please
> >don't circulate this any further as these are results in progress,
> >not yet shared with other ENSEMBLES partners let alone published). We
> >think the different short term warming responses are largely
> >attributable to the different SO2 emissions trajectories.
> >
> >So far we've run two realisations of both the E1-IMAGE and A1B-AR4
> >scenarios with HadGEM2-AO, and other partners in ENSEMBLES are doing
> >similar runs using other GCMs. Results will start to be analysed in a
> >multi-model way in the next few months. CMIP5 (AR5) prescribes
> >similar kinds of experiments, but the implementation details might
> >well be different from ENSEMBLES experiments wrt scenarios and their
> >SO2 emissions trajectories (I haven't studied the CMIP5 experiment
> >fine print to that extent).
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Tim
> >
> >On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 21:31 +0000, Folland, Chris wrote:
> > > Tim and Doug
> > >
> > > Please see McCrackens email.
> > >
> > > We are now using the average of 4 AR4
> > scenarios you gave us for GHG + aerosol. What is the situation
> > likely to be for AR5 forcing, particularly anthropogenic aerosols.
> > Are there any new estimates yet? Pareticularly, will there be a
> > revision in time for the 2010 forecast? We do in the meantime have
> > an explanation for the interannual variability of the last decade.
> > However this fits well only when an underlying net GHG+aerosol
> > warming of 0.15C per decade is fitted in the statistical models. In
> > a sense the methods we use would automatically fit to a reduced net
> > warming rate so Mike McCracken can be told that. In other words the
> > method creates it own transient climate sensitivity for recent
> > warming. But the forcing rate underlying the method nevertheless
> > perhaps sits a bit uncomfortably with the absolute forcing figures we are using from AR4.
> > However having said this, interestingly, the statistics and DePreSys
> > are in remarkable harmony about the temperature of 2009.
> > >
> > > Any guidance welcome
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > >
> > > Prof. Chris Folland
> > > Research Fellow, Seasonal to Decadal Forecasting (from 2 June
> > > 2008)
> > >
> > > Met Office Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter,
> > Devon  EX1 3PB United Kingdom
> > > Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
> > > Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
> > > Fax: (in UK)  0870 900 5050
> > >         (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)
> > >
Fellow of the Met Office Hon.
> > > Professor of School of Environmental
> > Sciences, University of East Anglia
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Mike MacCracken
> > > Sent: 03 January 2009 16:44
> > > To: Phil Jones; Folland, Chris
> > > Cc: John Holdren; Rosina Bierbaum
> > > Subject: Temperatures in 2009
> > >
> > > Dear Phil and Chris--
> > >
> > > Your prediction for 2009 is very interesting
> > (see note below for notice that went around to email list for a lot
> > of US Congressional staff)--and I would expect the analysis you have
> > done is correct. But, I have one nagging question, and that is how
> > much SO2/sulfate is being generated by the rising emissions from
> > China and India (I know that at least some plants are using
> > desulfurization--but that antidotes are not an inventory). I worry
> > that what the western nations did in the mid 20th century is going
> > to be what the eastern nations do in the next few decades--go to
> > tall stacks so that, for the near-term, "dilution is the solution to
> > pollution". While I understand there are efforts to get much better
> > inventories of CO2 emissions from these nations, when I asked a US
> > EPA representative if their efforts were going to also inventory
> > SO2 emissions (amount and height of emission), I was told they were
> > not. So, it seems, the scientific uncertainty generated by not
> > having good data from the mid-20th century is going to be repeated
> > in the early 21st century (satellites may help on optical depth, but
> > it would really help to know what is being emitted).
> > >
> > > That there is a large potential for a cooling
> > influence is sort of evident in the IPCC figure about the present
> > sulfate distribution--most is right over China, for example,
> > suggesting that the emissions are near the surface--something also
> > that is, so to speak, 'clear' from the very poor visibility and air
> > quality in China and India. So, the quick, fast, cheap fix is to put
> > the SO2 out through tall stacks. The cooling potential also seems
> > quite large as the plume would go out over the ocean with its low
> > albedo--and right where a lot of water vapor is evaporated, so maybe
> > one pulls down the water vapor feedback a little and this amplifies
> > the sulfate cooling influence.
> > >
> > > Now, I am not at all sure that having more
> > tropospheric sulfate would be a bad idea as it would limit
> > warming--I even have started suggesting that the least expensive and
> > quickest geoengineering approach to limit global warming would be to
> > enhance the sulfate loading--or at the very least we need to
> > maintain the current sulfate cooling offset while we reduce CO2
> > emissions (and presumably therefore, SO2 emissions, unless we manage
> > things) or we will get an extra bump of warming. Sure, a bit more
> > acid deposition, but it is not harmful over the ocean (so we
> > only/mainly emit for trajectories heading out over the ocean) and
> > the impacts of deposition may well be less that for global warming
> > (will be a tough comparison, but likely worth looking at). Indeed,
> > rather than go to stratospheric sulfate injections, I am leaning
> > toward tropospheric, but only during periods when trajectories are
> > heading over ocean and material won't get rained out for  10 days or so.
> > > Would be an interesting issue to do research on--see what could be done.
> > >
> > > In any case, if the sulfate hypothesis is
> > right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong. I
> > think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past
> > decade as a result of variability--that explanation is wearing thin.
> > I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also
> > do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a
> > quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong. Otherwise,
> > the Skeptics will be all over us--the world is really cooling, the
> > models are no good, etc.
> > And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue.
> > >
> > > We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
> > >
> > > Best, Mike MacCracken
> > >
> > >
> > > Researchers Say 2009 to Be One of Warmest Years on Record
> > >
> > > On December 30, climate scientists from the
> > UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia projected 2009 will
> > be one of the top five warmest years on record.  Average global
> > temperatures for 2009 are predicted to be 0.4°C above the 1961-1990
> > average of 14 º C. A multiyear forecast using a Met Office climate
> > model indicates a ³rapid return of global temperature to the
> > long-term warming trend,² with an increasing probability of record
> > temperatures after 2009. ³The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not
> > break records does not mean that global warming has gone away . . .
> > . What matters is the underlying rate of warming,² said Dr. Phil
> > Jones, the director of climate research at the University of East
> > Anglia.  The presence of La Nina during the last year partially masked this underlying rate.
> > ³Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence
> > on global surface temperature,² said Dr. Chris Folland of the Met
> > Office Hadley Center.
> > > ³Further warming to record levels is likely
> > once a moderate El Nino develops.²  The transition from a La Nina
> > effect to an El Nino one is expected late next year.
> > >
> > > For additional information see:
> > >
> > >
> >
> > -t
> > o-be-c
> > > older-than-in-Iceland.html
> > >
> > >
> > > ht
> > > ml
> > >
> > >
> >--
> >  Tim Johns   Manager Global Coupled Modelling
> >  Met Office   Hadley Centre
> >  FitzRoy Rd   Exeter  Devon  EX1 3PB   United Kingdom
> >  Tel:  +44 (0)1392 886901   Fax:  +44 (0)1392 885681
> >  E-mail: tim.johns@metoffice.gov.uk
> >
> >  Please note I work part time, normally Monday-Tuesday
> > Thursday-Friday
> >
> >  Met Office climate change predictions can now be viewed on Google
> > Earth
> >
> >
>
>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
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>
>
>
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
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