date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 06:46:28 -0500 from: JONATHAN PATZ subject: Re: Fwd: Re: climate trends in EAfrican highlands to: Mike Hulme Great! thanks Mike. Jonathan >Yes, happy to be involved if thought helpful. I am also trying to >get Mark New's reaction since it's his work primarily and I notice >he is cited in the original article as having made comments. > >Mike > >At 08:30 06/03/02 -0500, JONATHAN PATZ wrote: >>Thanks Andy. I am forwarding this on to Cynthia Rosenzweig's team >>who are already reanalyzing the data. I will bring a draft of our >>"Brief Communication" to the WHO Geneva meeting in 2 weeks. >> >>(MIKE, in the process of writing a data-driven rebuttal paper in >>Nature we are required to document communication with the original >>authors. We are developing a list of questions. Might I include >>some of yours...and we will likely want to include you as >>co-author, considering it is your historical climate data being >>abused. Structure of our paper is to show flawed climate analysis >>up front, following by 3 empirical time-series of climate/malaria >>in Kenya and Ethiopia.) >> >>Regards, >>Jonathan >> >> >> >>At 9:49 AM +0000 3/6/02, Andy Haines wrote: >>>Dear All, >>> >>>I am forwarding comments from Mike Hulme on the Nature paper-he is very >>>critical of the methods and the conclusions. I hope he will publish a >>>letter in Nature rebutting the paper. >>> >>>Andy >>>Received: from postbox.lshtm.ac.uk >>> (mailgw.lshtm.ac.uk [193.63.251.36]) >>> by s-nst5.lshtm.ac.uk; Tue, 05 Mar 2002 18:12:04 +0000 >>>Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) >>> by postbox.lshtm.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 25EB840231 >>> for ; Tue, 5 Mar 2002 18:11:23 +0000 (GMT) >>>Received: from mailgate2.uea.ac.uk (mailgate2.uea.ac.uk [139.222.230.101]) >>> by postbox.lshtm.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0BAAD4022D >>> for ; Tue, 5 Mar 2002 18:11:22 +0000 (GMT) >>>Received: from [139.222.130.16] (helo=mailserver1.uea.ac.uk) >>> by mailgate2.uea.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.02 #1) >>> id 16iJPy-000th6-00; Tue, 05 Mar 2002 18:12:06 +0000 >>>Received: from [139.222.106.15] (helo=tynmike.uea.ac.uk) >>> by mailserver1.uea.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.02 #1) >>> id 16iJPw-001y9R-00; Tue, 05 Mar 2002 18:12:05 +0000 >>>Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020305175833.020a3b20@pop.uea.ac.uk> >>>X-Sender: f037@pop.uea.ac.uk >>>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 >>>Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 18:10:52 +0000 >>>To: "Andy Haines" >>>From: Mike Hulme >>>Subject: Re: climate trends in EAfrican highlands >>>Cc: mark.new@geog.ox.ac.uk, t.mitchell@uea.ac.uk >>>In-Reply-To: >>>Mime-Version: 1.0 >>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >>>X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS >>> >>>Andy, >>> >>>Please pass on to others if you see fit ............ >>> >>>We are not wholly impressed with their analysis of 'our' dataset - >>>although I have not yet asked Mark New what he thinks (Mark - any >>>views?). The article seems to us to be an excellent example of >>>how *not* to use the New et al gridded data-sets. Perhaps this was >>>not made as clear as it might have been in the New et al papers >>>(hindsight is a wonderful thing!), but surely the New et al grids >>>are intended to be used for aggregation up to larger domains, not >>>disaggregation down to points! A single 0.5deg grid box is *not* >>>representative of climate at a point, certainly not in areas with >>>large altitudinal contrasts, with sparse data, and not for changes >>>of climate over short periods of time! >>> >>>- To do what the authors are wanting to do *surely* they should >>>use data from the co-located stations concerned (we have some >>>station precip. data for Kabale and Kericho, but not the other two >>>sites - and no T data for any of the four sites). >>> >>>- I do not entirely follow why the data were divided into two >>>sample periods. >>> >>>- It is not clear how 'unreliable' data were excluded from the >>>analysis when inputs were 'too sparse for reliable interpolation'. >>> >>>- It strikes me as an exercise in showing off clever statistical >>>analyses, applied to the wrong type of dataset, and drawing >>>unwarranted conclusions. >>> >>>- It may well be that there are no strong ('statistically >>>significant') temporal long-term trends in these climate >>>parameters for these four locations where there have been malaria >>>data - but I wouldn't put much money on it on the basis of this >>>*particular* analysis. >>> >>>- If we have chance/time we will try to extract out some precise >>>station data and see what they look like. Overall in East Africa, >>>of course, we know there has only been a weak warming trend over >>>50-100 years, but this is a regional average and local trends can >>>vary. >>> >>>Mike >>> >>> >>>At 12:03 04/03/02 +0000, you wrote: >>>>Mike, >>>> >>>>You may be interested to see this from Jon Patz quoting Cynthia >>>>Rosenzweig. Have you had a chance to look at the data for East Africa >>>>yet? >>>> >>>>AndyReceived: from postbox.lshtm.ac.uk >>>> (mailgw.lshtm.ac.uk [193.63.251.36]) >>>> by s-nst5.lshtm.ac.uk; Mon, 04 Mar 2002 11:59:43 +0000 >>>>Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) >>>> by postbox.lshtm.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id A639A40221 >>>> for ; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 11:58:58 >>>>+0000 (GMT) >>>>Received: from smtp.comcast.net (smtp.comcast.net [24.153.64.2]) >>>> by postbox.lshtm.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FDBC401BC >>>> for ; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 11:55:08 >>>>+0000 (GMT) >>>>Received: from [192.168.123.178] >>>> (tow13dhcp224.towson01.md.comcast.net [68.33.13.224]) >>>> by mtaout02.icomcast.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built >>>>Feb 6 2002)) >>>> with ESMTP id <0GSG009UC6H3D1@mtaout02.icomcast.net> for >>>> Andy.Haines@lshtm.ac.uk; Mon, 04 Mar 2002 06:55:52 -0500 (EST) >>>>Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 07:01:32 -0500 >>>>From: JONATHAN PATZ >>>>Subject: Re: FW: >>>>In-reply-to: >>>>X-Sender: jpatz@mail.jhsph.edu >>>>To: Andy Haines , P.Martens@ICIS.unimaas.nl, >>>> jpatz@jhsph.edu >>>>Cc: tony.mcmichael@anu.edu.au >>>>Message-id: >>>>MIME-version: 1.0 >>>>Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed >>>>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >>>>References: >>>>X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS >>>> >>>>Andy, >>>>According to Cynthia, there are strong warming trends since 1970. >>>>I've asked her to now specifically look at the 4 sites of Hay et >>>>al. >>>> >>>>Cheers, >>>>Jonathan >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>At 11:36 AM +0000 3/4/02, Andy Haines wrote: >>>>>Jon/Pim, >>>>> >>>>>I agree that others should be encouraged to send in letters >>>>>independently. It would certainly be worth asking Steve Lindsay to do so >>>>>- Pim are you in touch with him ? >>>>>I will discuss the matter with Tony when he is in London this week. I >>>>>have also alerted Mike Hulme at the Tyndall Centre and he is looking at >>>>>the time trends in East African climate to see if there are any trends >>>>>over time. >>>>> >>>>>Andy >>>>>>>> JONATHAN PATZ 04/03/2002 11:33:16 >>> >>>>>Pim, >>>>>I am putting together a "Brief Communication" based on historical >>>>>climate records for the region (Cynthia Rosenzweig) and longitudinal >>>>>malaria/temperature analysis from Ethiopia (Assefa Tulu & David >>>>>Bradley), and Kenya (Andrew & myself). I know that you and Steve have >>>>>done the modeling for Zimbabwe, but do you have longitudinal >>>>>historical malaria/temperature analysis completed? If so, that may >>>>>be of use for our paper. In this particular paper, we will not use >>>>>any future projections -only historical data. >>>>> >>>>>(Andy, Tony or Pim: Do you know the Nature editors? Might it be >>>>>worthwhile for some of us to ALSO write in letters to the editor >>>>>(much different from a "Brief Communication" with data and peer >>>>>review). I am focusing all my efforts on the Brief Communication. >>>>>But don't you think others should be encouraged to send in letters -I >>>>>suspect Steve Lindsay and others might already have done so, no?) >>>>>Any advice? >>>>> >>>>>regards, >>>>>Jonathan >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>At 9:23 AM +0100 3/4/02, P.Martens@ICIS.unimaas.nl wrote: >>>>>>Jonathan >>>>>> >>>>>>Thanks for sending me the Hay et al. paper (Simon emailed it to me as >>>>>well). >>>>>>I am becoming very tired of this - almost deliberately - >>>>>misinterpretation >>>>>>of reality. There most be some sort of bias also at Nature and >>>>>Science, in >>>>>>that they publish these articles. >>>>>> >>>>>>However, I feel the need for a reply, but I understood from Andrew >>>>>that >>>>>>several of you are also thinking about a response. It would be good to >>>>>join >>>>>>forces, so let me know what the status of your reply is and how I can >>>>>>contribute to that. >>>>>> >>>>>>All the best >>>>>> >>>>>>Pim >>>>>> >>>>>>-----Original Message----- >>>>>>From: Githeko, Andrew [mailto:AGitheko@kisian.mimcom.net] >>>>>>Sent: 03 March 2002 08:51 >>>>>>To: 'P.Martens@ICIS.unimaas.nl' >>>>>>Subject: RE: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>Pim, >>>>>> >>>>>>Thanks. I think our paper has solid evidence that indeed climate >>>>>variability >>>>>>has an effect on malaria epidemics. Jonathan Patz, Tony and Andrew >>>>>Haines >>>>>>are all thinking about a response. Please get in touch with Jonathan >>>>>for a >>>>>>contribution. This would be very helpful. I will also be contributing >>>>>a >>>>>>paragraph to the response. >>>>>>A pity we shall not see you in Kisumu. Sander is arriving on Wednesday >>>>>and >>>>>>to my surprise Petra is also around. >>>>>> >>>>>>Cheers. >>>>>> >>>>>>Andrew >>>>> >>>>>-- >>>>>================================================================== >>>>>Jonathan A. Patz, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director >>>>>Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change >>>>>Department of Environmental Health Sciences >>>>>Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health >>>>>615 N. Wolfe St. >>>>>Baltimore, MD 21205 >>>>> >>>>>410-955-4195 >>>>>410-955-1811 (FAX) >>>>>jpatz@jhsph.edu >>>>>http://www.jhsph.edu/globalchange >>>>>================================================================= >>>> >>>>-- >>>>================================================================== >>>>Jonathan A. Patz, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director >>>>Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change >>>>Department of Environmental Health Sciences >>>>Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health >>>>615 N. Wolfe St. >>>>Baltimore, MD 21205 >>>> >>>>410-955-4195 >>>>410-955-1811 (FAX) >>>>jpatz@jhsph.edu >>>>http://www.jhsph.edu/globalchange >>>>================================================================= >> >>-- >> >>======================================================== >>Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director >>Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change >>Dept. Environmental Health Sciences >>Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health >>615 N. Wolfe St., Rm.# 7041 >>Baltimore, MD 21205-2179 >>USA >>Tel: 410-955-4195 >>FAX: 410-955-1811 >>Email: jpatz@jhsph.edu >>Web: http://www.jhsph.edu/globalchange >>======================================================== -- ================================================================== Jonathan A. Patz, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change Department of Environmental Health Sciences Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health 615 N. Wolfe St. Baltimore, MD 21205 410-955-4195 410-955-1811 (FAX) jpatz@jhsph.edu http://www.jhsph.edu/globalchange =================================================================