| From | Phil Jones | Date | Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:03:13 +0100 (BST) |
|---|---|---|---|
| To | Rick Piltz | ||
| CC | Phil Jones, Ben Santer | ||
| Subject | Re: Your comments on the latest CEI/Michaels gambit | ||
| Rick, What you've put together seems fine from a quick read. I'm in Lecce in the heal of Italy till Tuesday. I should be back in the UK by Wednesday. The original raw data are not lost either. I could reconstruct what we had from some DoE reports we published in the mid-1980s. I would start with the GHCN data. I know that the effort would be a complete wate of time though. I may get around to it some time. As you've said, the documentation of what we've done is all in the literature. I think if it hadn't been this issue, the CEI would have dreamt up something else! Cheers Phil > Phil and Ben-- > > Thanks for writing. I appreciate very much what you're saying. > > I'm going to be posting some entries on this matter on the Climate > Science Watch Web site. I'm sure others will weigh in on it in > various venues (Steve Schneider has supplied me with an on-the-record > quote), and I suppose that a more formal response by the relevant > scientists is likely eventually to become part of the EPA docket as > part of their rejection of the CEI petition. But that will drag on, > and meanwhile CEI and Michaels will demagogue their allegations, as > they do with everything. No way to prevent that. But I would like to > expedite documenting some immediate pushback, helping to set the > record straight and put what CEI and Michaels are up to in perspective. > > I have taken the liberty of editing what you wrote just a bit (and > adding some possible URL links and writing-out of acronyms), in the > hope that, with your permission and with any revisions or additions > you might care to make, we could post your comments. This requires > no clearance other than you and me. I would draft appropriate text to > provide context. Please take a look at this and RSVP: > > Ben's comment: > > As I see it, there are two key issues here. > > First, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Pat Michaels > are arguing that Phil Jones and colleagues at the CRU [Climatic > Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK ] willfully, > intentionally, and suspiciously "destroyed" some of the raw surface > temperature data used in the construction of the gridded surface > temperature datasets. > > Second, the CEI and Pat Michaels contend that the CRU surface > temperature datasets provided the sole basis for IPCC "discernible > human influence" conclusions. > > Both of these arguments are incorrect. First, there was no > intentional destruction of the primary source data. I am sure that, > over 20 years ago, the CRU could not have foreseen that the raw > station data might be the subject of legal proceedings by the CEI and > Pat Michaels. Raw data were NOT secretly destroyed to avoid efforts > by other scientists to replicate the CRU and Hadley Centre-based > estimates of global-scale changes in near-surface temperature. In > fact, a key point here is that other groups -- primarily at the NCDC > [NOAA National Climatic Data Center] and at GISS [NASA Goddard > Institute for Space Studies], but also in Russia -- WERE able to > replicate the major findings of the CRU and UK Hadley Centre groups. > The NCDC and GISS groups performed this replication completely > independently. They made different choices in the complex process of > choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known > inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in > instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding > procedures. NCDC and GISS-based estimates of global surface > temperature changes are in good accord with the HadCRUT data results. > > The second argument -- that "discernible human influence" findings > are like a house of cards, resting solely on one observational > dataset -- is also invalid. The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) > considers MULTIPLE observational estimates of global-scale > near-surface temperature changes. It does not rely on HadCRUT data > alone - as is immediately obvious from Figure 2.1b of the TAR, which > shows CRU, NCDC, and GISS global-mean temperature changes. > > As pointed out in numerous scientific assessments (e.g., the IPCC TAR > and Fourth Assessment Reports, the U.S. Climate Change Science > Program Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1 (Temperature trends in > the lower atmosphere: steps for understanding and reconciling > differences), and the state of knowledge report, Global Climate > Change Impacts on the United States, rigorous statistical fingerprint > studies have now been performed with a whole range of climate > variables -- and not with surface temperature only. Examples include > variables like ocean heat content, atmospheric water vapor, surface > specific humidity, continental river runoff, sea-level pressure > patterns, stratospheric and tropospheric temperature, tropopause > height, zonal-mean precipitation over land, and Arctic sea-ice > extent. The bottom-line message from this body of work is that > natural causes alone CANNOT plausibly explain the climate changes we > have actually observed. The climate system is telling us an > internally- and physically-consistent story. The integrity and > reliability of this story does NOT rest on a single observational > dataset, as Michaels and the CEI incorrectly claim. > > I have known Phil for most of my scientific career. He is the > antithesis of the secretive, "data destroying" character the CEI and > Michaels are trying to portray to the outside world. Phil and Tom > Wigley have devoted significant portions of their scientific careers > to the construction of the land surface temperature component of the > HadCRUT dataset. They have conducted this research in a very open and > transparent manner -- examining sensitivities to different gridding > algorithms, different ways of adjusting for urbanization effects, use > of various subsets of data, different ways of dealing with changes in > spatial coverage over time, etc. They have thoroughly and > comprehensively documented all of their dataset construction choices. > They have done a tremendous service to the scientific community -- > and to the planet -- by making gridded surface temperature datasets > available for scientific research. They deserve medals -- not the > kind of deliberately misleading treatment they are receiving from Pat > Michaels and the CEI. > > > Phil's comment: > > No one, it seems, cares to read what we put up on the CRU web page. > These people just make up motives for what we might or might not have > done. > > > Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as > in the GHCN archive [Global Historical Climatology Network, used by > the NOAA National Climate Data Center]. > http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-monthly/index.php > http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ghcn/ghcngrid.html > > If we have lost any data it is the following: > > 1. Station series for sites that in the 1980s we deemed then to be > affected by either urban biases or by numerous site moves, that were > either not correctable or not worth doing as there were other series > in the region. > > 2. The original data for sites that we adjusted the temperature data > [Phil: for known inhomogeneities, or what?] in the 1980s. We still > have our adjusted data, of course, and these along with all other > sites that didn't need adjusting. > > 3. Since the 1980s as colleagues and NMSs [National Meteorological > Services] have produced adjusted series for regions and or countries, > then we replaced the data we had with the better series. > http://www.wmo.int/pages/members/index_en.html > > In the papers, I've always said that homogeneity adjustments are best > produced by NMSs. A good example of this is the work by Lucie Vincent > in Canada. Here we just replaced what data we had for the 200+ sites > she sorted out. > > The CRUTEM3 data for land look much like the GHCN and GISS [NASA > Goddard Institute for Space Studies] data for the same domains. > http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ > > Apart from a figure in the IPCC AR4 [Fourth Assessment Report, 2007] > showing this, there is also this paper from Geophysical Research > Letters in 2005 by Russ Vose et al. Figure 2 is similar to the AR4 plot. > [Vose et al paper] > > All best, > Rick > > > Rick Piltz > Director, Climate Science Watch > 301-807-2472 > www.climatesciencewatch.org > > Climate Science Watch is a sponsored project of the Government > Accountability Project, Washington, DC, dedicated to holding public > officials accountable for using climate science and related research > effectively and with integrity in responding to the challenges posed > by global climate disruption. > > The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not > conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. > --Albert Einstein > | |||