From	Phil Jones	Date	Thu Oct 14 16:29:31 2004
To	Michael E. Mann
Subject	Re: comment Von Storch?
Mike, FYI. I met this guy in Utrecht last week at Albert Klein Tank's PhD ceremony. It appears from many media reports that people really believe that their run is an ALTERNATE to yours - based on no proxy data. Even Hans has sent an email around to this effect, but he obviously isn't making it as clear as I've just done to this Dutch journalist. I think he might be being clear with fellow scientists and economical with the truth with journalists, i.e. not directing them down the correct path when he sees them going down the wrong one. I should see Ray next week in Seattle at a DoE meeting. Cheers Phil Dear Karel, I have only got back from a meeting this morning. I see you have also had a long reply from Mike Mann about the von Storch paper. Basically the von Storch et al paper is a discussion of the methodology used in the Mann, Bradley Hughes papers from 1998, 1999. It doesn't contain any new nor any observed proxy data. It is entirely a model study. Therefore, it cannot produce a record for the last millennium, it cannot claim that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today, nor that the Little Ice Age may have been colder than MBH says. It is really alarming that many media people (including yourself) have been taken in. What the von Storch et al paper is about is a climate model run - just one simulation. All it uses is an estimate of past variations in solar forcing and volcanic eruptions and more recently anthropogenic changes in greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. As I said the paper in a methodological critique of MBH, nothing more than that. It IS NOT an alternative to MBH. It also not based on ANY paleoclimatic data. If you believe it, you are putting everything on the model being correct and that their best guess at the past history of forcing as being correct. Regards Phil At 15:28 13/10/2004, you wrote: Dear professor Jones, (We met ten days ago in Utrecht, when Albert Klein Tank got his PhD). I am a science journalist of the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad in Rotterdam ([1]www.nrc.nl). I try to write an article about climate (surface temperature) reconstruction as far back as the year 1000 - the well know Mann, Bradley, Hughes (1998 and 1999) research. The reason is, of course, the publication of the article of Von Storch, Zorita, c.s. in Science-online (30 september). Von Storch claims that the statistical approach of Mann c.s. produced a serious underestimation of the low frequency (long term) oscillations in global temperature. The conclusion could be that the Medieval Warm Period was in fact warmer than today. And the recent warming is - after all - not so special. Can you in a few words - and for a general public - give a comment on the paper? Does it make sense? It seems pretty convincing to me. Can you help me? Waiting for your reply, sincerely yours, Karel Knip NRC Handelsblad Rotterdam e-mail knip@nrc.nl phone 31-10-4067327 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. http://www.nrc.nl/