date: Wed Feb 6 13:26:28 2008
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re: London meeting
to: Edouard BARD
Edouard,
Away last week and catching up. I can't make London as I'm
teaching here in Norwich. No-one else can go. It seems like an odd
meeting in London -surprised they got Jim Hansen to talk.
I've sent an email to Jim to warn him. Jim won't likely be there
on the second day - so I've asked him to make sure there are
a few reasoned scientists there and they know what might be coming
when Vincent gets up.
I don't know the others in the UK - seem like geologists and
oceanographers, so there may not be many climate types there.
I do know one of them so will send him a quick email.
Cheers
Phil
At 10:45 05/02/2008, you wrote:
Dear Phil,
Sorry to bother you again with this stuff, but it is important to keep you tuned.
Besides the informations sent previously (e.g. my messages pasted below), you should
know that Courtillot keeps saying and writing publicly that you did errors in your
publications and datasets available to the public. A further example is the video of his
talk available on the IPGP web site. In the front row of the packed audience, you can
even see the president of CNRS (Ms. Brechignac) and the former Director of Scientific
Research of the Ministry (Ms Giacobino). I paste below some comments (in French) that I
wrote to colleagues about when Courtillot lies about your work.
The main reason for my email is also to inform you about the forthcoming meeting in
London during which Courtillot will give a keynote lecture just after Jim Hansen ! The
title of his presentation is particularly appealing "Which global warming?".
This is the annual meeting of the British Geophysical Association "New Advances in
Geophysics" on the theme "Geophysics of Global Climate Change". "The aim of the meeting
is to bring together the diverse strands of geophysical research into climate change".
The six keynote speakers are the following
Dr. Jim Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Dr. Heiko Palike, NOC, Southampton
Prof. Vincent Courtillot, IPG, Paris
Dr. David Pyle, Oxford
Dr. Mark Siddall, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Prof. Paul Wilson, NOC, Southampton
More info can be found on the following web site:
[1]http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/~heiko/NAG2008/NAG2008.html
I hope that you will be able to attend or that somebody from your lab will be able to
respond to the detailed accusations propagated by Courtillot.
Best wishes, Edouard
*****************************************************************
J'ai pris le temps de regarder la conférence de Courtillot à l'IPGP le 10 janvier
disponible en ligne sur le site web de l'IPGP: [2]http://www.ipgp.jussieu.fr/ , cliquer
sur actualités, séminaires, vidéos, 10 janvier)
Beaucoup de choses à redire, mais ce serait trop long (en particulier au sujet de la
pirouette de la translation + homothétie pour l'irradiance solaire). Au sujet de la
courbe qu'ils ont intitulée Tglobe, Courtillot dit très distinctement:
Fichier "Exposé I" à 23 min et 40 sec.: "Cette courbe est bien de Monsieur Jones. Elle
est bien dans son article de 1999 de Reviews of Geophysics."
Fichier "Conclusions" à 7 min. et 30 sec.: "C'est eux qui se sont trompés. Quand nous,
nous avions pris cette courbe, il y a cinq ans dans l'article de Reviews of Geophysics,
on a bien évidemment admis que la légende de Jones et ses données étaient vraies. Ce
sont bien ses données, mais sa légende est fausse".
Toute personne qui prend ce fameux papier de Jones et al. (1999, Rev. Geophys.) peut
constater que ces deux assertions sont totalement FAUSSES. A noter que la présidente du
CNRS est assise au premier rang.
*****************************************************************
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:23:55 +0100
To: Phil Jones
From: Edouard BARD
Subject: additional file (attached PDF)
X-Attachments: :Macintosh HD:1254945:Pierrehumbert/Pasotti.pdf:
Phil,
In complement to my email of last week (pasted below), I attach the Comment submitted by
Ray to Science.
Cheers, Edouard
*****************************************
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:19:42 +0100
To: Phil Jones
From: Edouard BARD
Subject: French daggers (+ 3 attached files)
X-Attachments: :Macintosh HD:1254945:VC-DroitReponse - Acad.doc: :Macintosh
HD:1254945:Acad01-08-SH.ppt: :Macintosh HD:929141:LeMonde16/1/08.pdf:
Hello Phil,
Ray sent a formal letter to Science. This is submitted for publication in the paper
version of Science. Given the size limit (300 words) he couldn't give many details about
the temperature data. An additional possibility for commenting is through what they call
an e-letter that goes quicker.
Note that during the 'Secret Committee' last Tuesday at the Academy, Courtillot and
Allègre ferociously accused me for organizing a plot against their institute IPGP. As I
told you, nobody was there to defend my case. Note also that Courtillot makes direct and
vicious attacks against you:
This started in the official 'Lettre de l'Académie' in which he wrote a long interview
following the meetings in March 2007. I think you have this document already. You can
download it again from:
[3]http://www.academie-sciences.fr/publications/lettre.htm
On page 3, Courtillot accuses you for hiding the temperature data and express his doubts
about your computations. On page 25, Courtillot writes:
"Je suis en discussion depuis nos journées avec le professeur Jones, un échange amical
et régulier pour essayer de voir si nous pouvons reprendre et comparer nos données aux
leurs. Pour l'instant cela semble difficile, ce laboratoire ayant signé un accord de
confidentialité avec les fournisseurs de données brutes ! Reconstituer cette base de
données avec un accès aux données de l'ensemble des stations météorologiques du monde
est un travail considérable, puisque le professeur Jones a dans sa base de données 3,7
millions de températures mensuelles depuis 1850. Or nous avons des doutes croissants sur
la validité d'un calcul que pour l'instant nous n'avons pas tous les éléments pour
reprendre."
Last Tuesday, during the 'Secret Committee' at the Academy, Courtillot reiterated his
doubts and distributed to all academicians a text (attached Word file) and made a
powerpoint presentation (attached PPT file). This documents also includes the editorial
note that will be published by Rob van der Hilst in the next EPSL issue in order to
print my note added in proof and to clarify the data sources. Part of Courtillot's text
is already published in Le Monde (+ edits) and will be published in other major French
newspapers. On pages 5, 6 8, and in Le Monde Courtillot writes:
"Sans trop rentrer dans les détails techniques, il nous a été reproché d'avoir utilisé
des données dont les références n'étaient pas ce que nous disions. Notamment une série
de données que nous attribuions à un chercheur britannique, M. Jones, n'était pas
reconnue par ce chercheur comme provenant de lui. Nous avons établi que ce chercheur
faisait erreur et que les données étaient bien les siennes et que nous n'avions en rien
altéré ses données. Nous les attribuions en revanche par erreur à tout un hémisphère de
la terre alors qu'elles étaient en fait réduites à la zone de latitudes allant de 20°N
au pôle. Cette confusion résulte principalement d'un manque de clarté des légendes des
articles de Jones et de ses co-auteurs eux-mêmes, mais surtout, et c'est le plus
important pour le débat scientifique, elle est sans conséquences sur nos conclusions,
les diverses séries de données concernées étant peu différentes, comme il est aisé de le
vérifier. Dans la note évoquée par S. Huet, Bard et Delaygue nous ont accusés de fausse
citation, en arguant du témoignage (erroné) de Jones."
Note that Courtillot makes as if the file he used is taken directly from Jones et al.
(1999) as cited in his paper, instead of explaining that it is a different curve,
constructed for a very specific purpose in Briffa et al. (2001) of which you are
coauthor. What is amazing is that Courtillot claims that the only confusion is between a
record for latitude >20°N instead of the northern hemisphere. This is crazy because the
confusion is between the global curve and a curve not only for latitudes >20°N BUT also
only for continents and during the April-September warm season. Looking again at Figure
2 page 178 of Jones et al. (1999), it don't see any "lack of clarity" in your
three-panel figure! It is even obvious that the Tglobe curve he used is similar to the
northern Hemispheric one instead of the global one. This was actually the reason of my
initial doubt expressed in the submitted version of my EPSL Comment. In addition, I
don't see why the statement form you I used in my note added in proof would be
erroneous:
"We were unable to find this file even by contacting its putative author who
specifically stated to us that it is not one of his files (Dr. Philip D. Jones, written
communication dated Oct. 23, 2007)."
This statement is completely true. This is indeed not one of your UEA file. Second, the
first part of the URL is incomplete and incorrect (dots are missing). We now know that
this file DOES exist at NOAA BUT that it is NOT what has been plotted by Courtillot et
al.:
[4]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html
[5]ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
Hence, if I had not submitted my note added in proof, the readers would be unable to
locate the file and would believe that it is a (land) global temperature file. In any
case the file was not the one plotted on their Figure now replotted in Science !
Best wishes, Edouard
--
----------------------------------------------
Edouard BARD
Professeur au Collège de France
Chaire de l'évolution du climat et de l'océan
Directeur adjoint du CEREGE, UMR-6635
Le Trocadéro, Europole de l'Arbois BP80
13545 Aix-en-Provence cdx 4
Tel 04 42 50 74 18, 04 42 50 74 20 (secr.)
Fax 04 42 50 74 21, email bard@cerege.fr
[6]http://www.college-de-france.fr/default/EN/all/evo_cli/
----------------------------------------------
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
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