cc: "Jones, Phil"
, "Kennedy, John"
date: 25 Jan 2008 10:57:19 -0500
from: Gavin Schmidt
subject: Re: [Fwd: FW: Attn: Hadley Centre]
to: David Parker
David, Phil, Don't make any particular deal about this - I'm sure it was
just a slip of the pen. However, these are high profile analyses and
having emails like this floating around could result in unnecessary
controversy. A little more care could be warranted.
Gavin
On Fri, 2008-01-25 at 08:10, David Parker wrote:
> Phil
>
> I have chased this up. Sarah is on night-shift tonight (you are right
> about the shift-working!) and one of her colleagues has left her a
> message to find out who provided the words she sent - Sarah isn't a
> climate scientist and will have consulted someone else. I wouldn't have
> provided such words!
>
> Regards
>
> David
>
> On Fri, 2008-01-25 at 09:14 +0000, Phil Jones wrote:
> > Gavin,
> > No real idea what's going on here. I would like to believe that Sarah at
> > the Met Office Customer Centre has had some discussions with the
> > Hadley Centre people on this, so cc'ing John Kennedy and David Parker to
> > see if they can find out.
> > What could be a factor is that the Customer Centre has to respond
> > to questions and in a certain time frame. I would have thought that this
> > related to MO and MOHC datasets and what is said on the MO web site,
> > so shouldn't cover datasets from other groups.
> > CRU wouldn't have responded like this, but would have been
> > along the lines
> > of an email I sent to you and Jim a week ago. There are issues in the Arctic
> > with warming and little data from the Arctic Ocean that I've
> > mentioned before.
> > There has been a lot of discussion on numerous blog sites about
> > differences
> > between the various datasets on the ranking of recent warm years. One simple
> > thing I thought about a few days and then didn't have time to do
> > was to compare
> > the HadCRUT3, NCDC and GISS analyses of global T with Pearson and
> > Spearman-rank correlations. All three groups getting the ranks
> > exactly the same
> > is the most strict test I can think of given the uncertainties that
> > exist in all three
> > analyses.
> > Another non-scientific issue is that Sarah is probably part of
> > a group working shifts,
> > so responses from different members could be variable depending who
> > you get. The
> > range of questions could be large, so some or all may not be aware of all the
> > history of the issue. I can't keep up with all this and don't look
> > at most of the
> > blog sites that discuss the temperature record - nor do I want to!
> > I would have sent this paper as well - attached. NCDC has a new paper
> > coming out in J. Climate, with a newish method. When this appears this
> > will reopen the debate, as they will raise (but not allow for) the issue that
> > SSTs may be 0.1 to 0.2 too cold recently due to recent dominance of buoys
> > vs ships. NCDC are also doing more infilling, but I think keeping
> > clear of sea-ice areas.
> >
> > As an aside, I think HadCRUT3 could be underestimating recent
> > warming - but
> > only because the Arctic sea ice is disappearing quickly. I've a few
> > ideas of how
> > to address this - using ERA-40 possibly? I may have said earlier
> > that with the figures
> > for Ch 3 of WG1 AR4 we noticed that HadSST2 is biased warm in the Arctic seas
> > north of 65N - so the plot just shows Arctic land N of 65N.
> >
> > I am away all next week.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Phil
> >
> > >Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:48:39 -0500 (EST)
> > >Subject: [Fwd: FW: Attn: Hadley Centre]
> > >From: contrib@realclimate.org
> > >To: enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk
> > >Cc: "Phil Jones" ,
> > > akasket@hotmail.com
> > >User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.5
> > >X-UEA-Spam-Score: 0.8
> > >X-UEA-Spam-Level: /
> > >X-UEA-Spam-Flag: NO
> > >
> > >I was passed this email that you sent in response to a query from a member
> > >of the public. While pointing out correctly the differences between the
> > >procedures used in the GISTEMP product and the Had/CRU analysis, I am a
> > >little puzzled as to why you felt the need to suggest that the GISTEMP
> > >analysis was not 'honest'. This seems to go beyond the normal bounds of a
> > >professional response.
> > >
> > >Do you have any substance to back up such a claim? My colleagues at GISS
> > >on the contrary seem to be exemplary in pointing out the differences in
> > >techniques and their consequences. For instance, the graph available here:
> > >
> > >http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ArcticEffect.pdf
> > >
> > >shows the increasing impact of changing temperatures in the Arctic on the
> > >analysis. The statements in http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
> > >
> > >"Our analysis differs from others by including estimated temperatures up
> > >to 1200 km from the nearest measurement station (7). The resulting spatial
> > >extrapolations and interpolations are accurate for temperature anomalies
> > >at seasonal and longer time scales at middle and high latitudes, where the
> > >spatial scale of anomalies is set by Rossby waves (7). Thus we believe
> > >that the remarkable Arctic warmth of 2005 is real, and the inclusion of
> > >estimated arctic temperatures is the primary reason for our rank of 2005
> > >as the warmest year. "
> > >
> > >also seem clear enough. Further discussions are made in the technical
> > >literature that is available at the GISS site.
> > >
> > >I hope that you can correct a possibly misleading impression that could be
> > >left.
> > >
> > >Cordially,
> > >
> > >Gavin Schmidt
> > >
> > >PS. I am not connected with the GISTEMP group except through working in
> > >the same building.
> > >
> > > > Subject: FW: Attn: Hadley Centre
> > > > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:10:55 +0000
> > > > From: enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk
> > > > To: akasket@hotmail.com
> > > >
> > > > Dear Alan,
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for your email.
> > > >
> > > > Your comment #221 in the RealClimate tread was in response to #218.
> > > > This particular thread was concerned with the observations of
> > > > temperature rise and not with the Hadley Centre climate model. The HC
> > > > climate model of course has polar amplification just as every other
> > > > climate model does.
> > > >
> > > > The point was the interpolation of existing observational data over the
> > > > polar regions. If you look at the raw observations that GISS uses you
> > > > can see how little data they are basing an interpolation on.
> > > >
> > > > Regardless of what they consider the correct spatial length scale for
> > > > observations, the Arctic sees large regional changes in temperature,
> > > > which are being glossed over with a large correlation length.
> > > >
> > > > The Had/CRU treatment of the observations simply states that the error
> > > > is greater due to lacking data, something GISS are not honest about.
> > > > There are no EXTRA observations that GISS has access to, that Had/CRU
> > > > does not. Thus there is no reason to believe GISS' observations vs
> > > > Had/CRU observations of recent global temperature rise when the errors
> > > > are taken into account.
> > > >
> > > > Kind Regards,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Sarah
> > > >
> > > > Customer Centre, Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB,
> > > > United Kingdom. Tel: 0870 900 0100 Fax: 0870 900 5050 Email:
> > > > enquiries@metoffice.gov.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
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------