date: Thu May 8 12:56:46 2008 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: UEA Environmental Sciences Website to: BuleyAL@aol.com Dear Tony, Lawson is just trying to sell his book! There may be something of relevance in it wrt the economics of trying to do anything on climate change, but as far as the science behind climate change he is just wrong. It is hard for the general public to follow these issues. The blog sites don't help that much. Real Climate is the best - it is run by real climatologists. They don't have as much there as some of the others, but the people running it have to do day jobs. Legates and Baliunas don't know anything about proxy data. I think you should have said Soon and Baliunas. They don't have any background in paleoclimatology, so you can forget them. The latest info is in the IPCC Report, but I know it is almost 1000pp. You only get sound science in the proper climate science journals. These are the ones peer-reviewed by climate scientists. Journals have what is called an Impact Factor based partly on citation counts. If they don't mention this they aren't worth reading. The IPCC report has a section on the MWP. Even though this was likely more regional than many believe (e.g. there is growing evidence it was cooler in the Equatorial Pacific during this time, with more La Nina events) we have been warmer than then since the 1980s. Glaciers are retreating across the world (except in a few regions such as southern Norway where they respond to winter precip). In the Alps man-made items are being found under the retreat. Most come from 6000 years ago, with some from Roman times. None is Medieval. Attached is a paper on the last few millennia. Cheers Phil At 11:32 08/05/2008, you wrote: Dear Phil, Thank you for your reply to my "Lord Lawson" query. That is very clear and seems to confirm my concern about Lawson's attempt to spin the interpretation of your data. I notice that, in his book, he has also grabbed on to the Legates and Baliunis attack on the "Hockey Stick " model which I know you have a direct interest in. They seem to have good scientific pedigrees so presumably their arguments should be taken seriously. How is that model holding up to this scepticism? Is the issue about the "medieval Warm period" resolved? For the majority of the general non-scientific public (which includes many of my friends) these are pretty esoteric debates and they views can be easily swayed either way by a plausible book or documentary. I feel it is important that people like myself, scientifically trained but not as climate scientists, should have a good up-to-date understanding of the issues so as to be able to explain and support sound scientific argument on such an important matter. I have read Sir John Houghton's book and found it very helpful. Regards Tony Buley PS My apologies for twice misspelling "Hadley" in my email. A phenomenon known among us over 60s as the "Senior Moment effect". In a message dated 06/05/2008 10:46:38 GMT Standard Time, p.jones@uea.ac.uk writes: Dear Tony, Have also just read the full page spread in Saturday's Guardian, and a couple of response letters in today's issue. Lawson doesn't understand climate change (the science). He may be right that we won't be able to do much about slowing the rate of change. He thinks like a politician and not a scientist. What he doesn't understand is that increasing greenhouse gases are only one factor affecting climate change. They dominate on timescales beyond decadal, but on the interannual, natural variability dominates. We are relatively cool now because of the La Nina event, which is waning. The next warmest year will be the year of or the year after the next El Nino event. This has all been explained countless times before. [1]http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080103.html In finding this link, I notice that the Met Office have put up another release on April 29. [2]http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080429.html There is no after the event in all this. Climatologists have known for years that much of the variability of global T (and NH and SH) is due to El Nino and La Nina. The attached is from our in-house magazine (Climate Monitor) from 1990. It is all a matter of timescales. The 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s (so far) are clearly warmer than the 1990s. There are a lot of silly op-ed pieces on climate change and recent temperatures. Most are just not worth responding to. The latest has been about the drop in temperatures between Jan07 and Jan08. This is as a result of La Nina. You might like to look at the recent temperatures on our site for March08. [3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/tgrid/2008/ March08 has been the warmest March on record for the NH land. This is just because the snow cover over Eurasia disappeared quickly during Feb. See these time series and maps. [4]http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/ Look at Eurasia snow cover extent for Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar08. March is only one month. Cheers Phil At 12:17 05/05/2008, you wrote: Dear Professor Jones, I was away on holiday when Karen Crockett sent me this mail, hence the delay. In a sense the moment has passed now but I became marginally involved in a dispute between Lord Lawson (he of the new book about "so-called global warming" -his phrase, not mine) and Dr E Robert Watson in the letter columns of the Financial Times where Lawson had repeated his claim, made in his book, that average global temperatures have not risen this century - a statement subsequently strongly disputed by Watson. I wrote a slightly whimsical letter to the Editor of the FT , which was published, saying that I was inclined to believe "the trained chemist rather than the former financial journalist" and it was then that Lawson replied quoting joint research by CRU and the Hadler Institute as supporting his statement. Having examined the websites of Hadler and CRU it appears that while apparently literally correct (as temperatures seem to have temporarily stabilised around a point slightly lower than that reached in 1998), Lawson has ignored the fact that seven of the ten warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 2000 and that, by attempting to pooh pooh a highly plausible explanation for this (La Nina) by describing it as "after the event", he has put own spin on the figures to support his own extreme scepticism. In the process he is attempting to "distort the underlying scientific truth of these data" (my phrase). As a one-time scientist myself (now retired) I am particularly incensed by non-scientists who try to place simplistic interpretations on complex data. As I say, the argument moved on while I was on holiday where I did not have access to the FT but, if you have time to reply, I would be interested to know your views on Lawson's interpretation of your own research data. If he has a point he should be given due credit. I think it is important because Lawson is still an influential figure. With kind regards Tony Buley Dr A L Buley Oxford OX2 6XP In a message dated 23/04/2008 11:45:08 GMT Standard Time, k.crockett@uea.ac.uk writes: Dear Tony, Following your call on Monday regarding information on our website, I have had some email correspondence from Professor Phil Jones. He is currently away and so unable to talk by phone, but if you can email your query to him via [5]p.jones@uea.ac.uk he shall try and help you from there. Regards, Karen. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Karen Crockett Local Support Secretary and CSERGE Secretary School of Environmental Sciences (2.36) University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ Tel: +44 (0)1603 593176 Fax: +44 (0)1603 591327 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------