date: Thu May 15 13:55:40 2003 from: Keith Briffa subject: Re: paper/comment request to: David Appell David I would be happy to discuss the background and this paper in general if you care to phone (see number below) . I will be here all friday I agree with a lot of what Phil said in his message = but the complications arise because of the mis use of the results by the greenhouse sceptics - and paranoia of some who believe in greenhouse warming. I believe passionately that we have a long way to go to get realistic and accurate (absolute) measures of Hemispheric temperatures over the last millennium and earlier . However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the "best evidence" is certainly in support of unprecedented (truly mean Hemispheric and annual) warming in the 20th century and recent decades. The modern (instrumental) indications of Hemispheric warmth are (almost literally) incomparably superior to those based on our high-resolution proxy records (with their narrow coverage and largely summer seasonal bias) . Even pushing the few individual records to their maximum warmth limit , the most sensible interpretation of the data does provide much of a case for equivalent warmth in any "Medeival" period (or on any timescale). Those who prefer to believe in a globally warmer Medieval period largely fall back on poorly resolved , even more selective evidence that has real problems e.g. interpretable signal (temp. versus precip.) ; qualitative measurement ; non-deconvolved lagged responses, and geographical bias that is at least as poor as our high-resolution data. The science is not progressed without overcoming these problems. Our own desire to recognize and address the limitations of our own data in the search for accurate and absolute climate histories should not be confused with a clear expression that "as we stand" the evidence against unprecedented recent warming does not carry the day. At 04:11 PM 5/13/03 -0400, you wrote: Hi. I was wondering if I could get a copy of your 1998 paper: Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Barnett, T.P. and Tett, S.F.B., 1998 "High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures," The Holocene 8(4), 455-471 (1998). As you may know, this paper has been cited by Soon and Baliunas as evidence for a worldwide "discernible climatic anomaly during the Little Ice Age, defined as 1300-1900." [Soon W, Baliunas S, "Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years," Climate Research, 23:89-110 (2003)] (attached) -- see question 1, p. 90. I'm wondering whether you agree with Soon and Baliunas classification of your paper. I'd be interested in any thoughts, by this coming Monday, May 19th -- I'm writing a news article for "Scientific American" magazine on these claims.. As well as any thoughts you have on the Soon & Baliunas paper (as well as their longer paper, "Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal," Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Craig Idso and David R. Legates, Energy and Environment, vol. 14, issues 2 & 3, April 11, 2003. Thank you, David -- David Appell, freelance science journalist http://www.nasw.org/users/appell p: 207-646-3080 f: 815-333-1486 e: appell@nasw.org m: 27 Beach Street Rear, P.O. Box 42, Ogunquit, ME 03907-0042 -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/