From	Gavin Schmidt	Date	10 Dec 2004 08:56:42 -0500
To	Michael Prather, robert.berner@yale.edu, Phil Jones, rjs@gfdl.noaa.gov, James Hansen, dshindell@giss.nasa.gov, rmiller@giss.nasa.gov, drind@giss.nasa.govjames.risbey, td@gfdl.gov, aclement@rsmas.miami.edu, james.white@colorado.edu, hfd@cdc.noaa.gov, wuebbles@atmos.uiuc.edu, Lonnie G. Thompson, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Juerg Luterbacher, Malcolm K. Hughes, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Tom Crowley, Tom Wigley, Ben Santer, schrag@eps.harvard.edu, Judith Lean, weaver@uvic.ca, djt@mast.queensu.ca, Keith Briffa, Tim Osborn, Stott, Peter, robock@envsci.rutgers.edu, Kevin Trenberth, Mike MacCracken, Michael Schlesinger, dkaroly@ou.edu, Michael Oppenheimer, Stephen H Schneider, André Berger, david@atmos.washington.edu, Edward R. Cook, David Thompson, mcane@ldeo.columbia.edu, meehl@ncar.ucar.edu, myles.allen@physics.ox.ac.uk, natasha@atmos.uiuc.edu, Thomas R Karl, Martin Manning, nmantua@u.washington.edu, jeffrey.park@yale.edu, jseveringhaus@ucsd.edu, bengtsson@dkrz.de, Julia Cole, juliebg@geo.umass.edu, rich@ldeo.columbia.edu, Gabi Hegerl, dcayan@ucsd.edu, chris.folland@metoffice.com, masson@dsm-mail.saclay.cea.fr, goosse@astr.ucl.ac.uk, atimmermann@ifm.uni-kiel.de, ajb@gfdl.gov, penner, Susan Solomon, jmahlman@ucar.edu, rbierbau@umich.edu
CC	Michael E. Mann, Eric Steig, ammann@ncar.edu, ray bradley, aclement@rsmas.miami.edu, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf
Subject	RealClimate.org
Colleagues, No doubt some of you share our frustration with the current state of media reporting on the climate change issue. Far too often we see agenda-driven "commentary" on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis. Many of us work hard on educating the public and journalists through lectures, interviews and letters to the editor, but this is often a thankless task. In order to be a little bit more pro-active, a group of us (see below) have recently got together to build a new 'climate blog' website: RealClimate.org which will be launched over the next few days at: http://www.realclimate.org The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly 'bombshell' papers that are doing the rounds and give more context to climate related stories or events. Some examples that we have already posted relate to combatting dis-information regarding certain proxy reconstructions and supposed 'refutations' of the science used in Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. We have also posted more educational pieces relating to the interpretation of the ice core GHG records or the reason why the stratosphere is cooling. We are keeping the content strictly scientific, though at an accessible level. The blog format allows us to update postings frequently and clearly as new studies come along as well as maintaining a library of useful information (tutorials, FAQs, a glossary etc.) and past discussions. The site will be moderated to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. We hope that you will find this a useful resource for your own outreach efforts. For those more inclined to join the fray, we extend an open invitation to participate, for instance, as an occasional guest contributor of commentaries in your specific domain, as a more regular contributor of more general pieces, or simply as a critical reader. Every time you explain a basic point of your science to a journalist covering a breaking story, think about sharing your explanation with wider community. RealClimate will hopefully make that easier. You can contact us personally or at contrib@realclimate.org for more information. This is a strictly volunteer/spare time/personal capacity project and obviously nothing we say there reflects any kind of 'official' position. We welcome any comments, criticisms or suggestions you may have, even if it is just to tell us to stop wasting our time! (hopefully not though). Thanks, Gavin Schmidt on behalf of the RealClimate.org team: - Gavin Schmidt - Mike Mann - Eric Steig - William Connolley - Stefan Rahmstorf - Ray Bradley - Amy Clement - Rasmus Benestad - William Connolley - Caspar Ammann