date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:46:29 +0000 from: "Folland, Chris" subject: FW: SCEPTICS to: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk Keith Message failed first time - my fault. Please see below Chris Professor Chris Folland Head of Climate Variability Research Global climate data sets are available from http://www.hadobs.org Met Office, Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk Tel: +44 (0)1392 886646 Fax: (in UK) 0870 900 5050 (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072)===== Original Message From "Folland, Chris" > ===== >Phil > >See below. I have been asked to reply - it's a message to John >Houghton. Can you email me Jones et al 1998 and the Briffa paper? > >Thanks > >Chris > >OBSERVATIONS OF A SKEPTIC >In Sir Houghton's book Global Warming: the Complete Briefing , >published in 1994, he emphasizes (pp 51-52) the widespread evidence of a medieval warm period. This was also shown in the SAR. > >As of 1997, there were several studies offering hemispheric or global averages: >-The borehole records of Huang, Pollack and Shen, published in GRL in >1997, showing a strong MWP much warmer than today >-The graphs of Briffa and Jones that appear in Figure 2.21 -The Mann >hockey stick with the peak in the late 20th century > >THe hockey stick is the only reconstruction shown in the Summary (why?) >and is the sole basis for the claim that temperatures are the highest in 1000 years. On page 134 in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report the hockey stick is printed twice, in two half-page, full colour versions, one above the other. In Figure 2.20 it is graphed alone. In Figure 2.21 it is overlaid with one graph due to P. Jones and the other due to K. Briffa. The original Jones graph (published in The Holocene in 1998) does not look like a hockey stick, as the "warmest" years are AD1106, AD1074, and AD1103, and the warmest decade is the 1930s. This is not visible in the IPCC version because the line is so heavily smoothed (why?-- the Hockey stick is shown unsmoothed in Fig 2.20). The original Briffa graph (published in Quaternary Science Reviews in 2000) also reaches peak values in the 11th century, but this is not visible in the IPCC presentation since the first 400 years were left out (why?). > >Two graphs of data based on borehole temperature measurements by Huang >et al don't look like the hockey stick either, but one is banished to a small chart on an earlier page (p. 132) and the other is mentioned in the text but is not reproduced at all. Why? > > > > >Professor Chris Folland > >Head of Climate Variability Research > >Global climate data sets are available from http://www.hadobs.org > >Met Office, Hadley Centre, Fitzroy Rd, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB United >Kingdom >Email: chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk >Tel: +44 (0)1392 886646 >Fax: (in UK) 0870 900 5050 > (International) +44 (0)113 336 1072) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk > >Also: Hon. Professor of School of Environmental Sciences, University of >East Anglia