cc: Michael McIntyre <M.E.McIntyre@damtp.cam.ac.uk>, holton@atmos.washington.edu, jthoughton@ipccwg1.demon.co.uk, "Mahlman, Jerry" <JerryM@gfdl.gov>, Peter Haynes <P.H.Haynes@damtp.cam.ac.uk>, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, k.p.shine@reading.ac.uk, j.haigh@ic.ac.uk, hoskins@met.reading.ac.uk
date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:38:23 +0100 (BST)
from: Michael McIntyre <M.E.McIntyre@damtp.cam.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Sunday Times letter
to: Paal Brekke <pbrekke@esa.nascom.nasa.gov>


Dear Paal,

Re:
> Yes it was better, but still I am puzzled about the last quotes.. "All
> evidence suggest ...." That does not make much rom for other
> possibilities..

Well, no reporter is going to be perfect, any more than the rest of us.
At least their punchline emphasized the uncertainties.  (And they did say
-- I hope it's true -- that IPCC "leaves the door open".)

> Also, they missed out mypoint.. the 20% contribution from irradiance only
> was for the last 30-40 years..it may have looked like I ment the last
> 150.. And even 20% (from irradiance increaseonly) IS significant

Yes, it wasn't very clear -- but perhaps this distinction is getting a bit
fine now, from a public viewpoint, getting down toward the noise of
uncertainty. At least the BBC article gave the cosmic ray hypothesis a
reasonable exposure, I thought.  I agree with you and others that the
cosmic ray hypothesis --- even if not the Answer to Everything as Nigel
Calder unfortunately said, presumably to sell his book --- must
nevertheless be taken seriously.  Thanks by the way for yesterday's email
giving more detail on attempts to assess that hypothesis, clearly still
difficult.  It's good that it's being looked at a bit more.

On the UV question, I'd still like to know whether the estimate of
increased solar UV luminosity that started all this is derived from
geomagnetic data.

M