Nye also said that he felt from his experience that global warming denial could be attributed to generational factors, like his personal observations that older people have a much harder time grasping how billions of people could affect the thin atmosphere. He felt that younger generations are more accepting of this possibility.

Probably the weakest argument that Nye made was that the IPCC (and the non-mentioned Al Gore) received a Nobel Peace Prize from their scientific ‘discovery.’ This is almost certainly not true – the IPCC did not claim to make any discoveries and, in fact, were only charged with understanding the currently accepted science. These same winners include those involved in the CRU ClimateGate scandal, the shrinking glaciers of the Himalayas, and the Netherlands being below sea level. A similar body of Nobel prize awarders also awarded a prize to President Barack Husein Obama for making the world a safer place.

You can watch the short version of the interview here courtesy of YouTube.

This report is from Breitbart, you can read the full article there.

The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.

---

IPCC experts calculated that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level by adding the area below sea level — 26 percent — to the area threatened by river flooding — 29 percent — Vallaart said.

“They should have been clearer,” Vallaart said, adding that the Dutch office for environmental planning, an IPCC partner, had exact figures.

Correcting the error had been “on the agenda several times” but had never actually happened, Vallaart said.

The spokesman said he regretted the fact that proper procedure was not followed and said it should not be left to politicians to check the IPCC’s numbers.

The Dutch environment ministry will order a review of the report to see if it contains any more errors, Vallaart said.

This is one of the reasons that studying historical temperatures is so important (a need that resulted in ClimateGate and the CRU emails). If history shows that Earth has been dramatically warmer than current temperatures, then we can assume that the runaway tipping point will not be reached (at least not very soon).

A recent study shows that this feedback appears to exist. The good news is that the models have it wrong – they expected a far greater feedback than was found in this current study. This is great news for mankind as our imminent death is at least delayed. It also reaffirms my call for better climate modeling science!

It is unlikely that President Barack Obama is strong enough to persuade Congress to pass sweeping legislation to ruin the American economy with global warming fears. It was close though! If the US Government had gone after cap and trade prior to healthcare, they would have pulled it off. Now it is doubtful.

The following article by Alister Doyle appeared on Reuters.

Climate change caused by mankind will release extra heat-trapping gases stored in nature into the atmosphere in a small spur to global warming, a study showed.

But the knock-on effect of the additional carbon dioxide — stored in soils, plants and the oceans — on top of industrial emissions building up in the atmosphere will be less severe than suggested by some recent studies, they said.

“We are confirming that the feedback exists and is positive. That’s bad news,” lead author David Frank of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL said of the study in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.

“But if we compare our results with some recent estimates (showing a bigger feedback effect) then it’s good news,” Frank, an American citizen, told Reuters of the report with other experts in Switzerland and Germany.

The data, based on natural swings in temperatures from 1050-1800, indicated that a rise of one degree Celsius (1.6 degree Fahrenheit) would increase carbon dioxide concentrations by about 7.7 parts per million in the atmosphere.

That is far below recent estimates of 40 ppm that would be a much stronger boost to feared climate changes such as floods, desertification, wildfires, rising sea levels and more powerful storm, they said.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have already risen to about 390 ppm from about 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. Only some models in the last major U.N. climate report, in 2007, included assessments of carbon cycle feedbacks.

Frank said the new study marks an advance by quantifying feedback over the past 1,000 years and will help refine computer models for predicting future temperatures.

SURPRISES

“In a warmer climate, we should not expect pleasant surprises in the form of more efficient uptake of carbon by oceans and land,” Hugues Goosse of the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, wrote in a comment in Nature.

The experts made 220,000 comparisons of carbon dioxide levels — trapped in tiny bubbles in annual layers of Antarctic ice — against temperatures inferred from natural sources such as tree rings or lake sediments over the years 1050-1800.

Goosse said the study refined a general view that rising temperatures amplify warming from nature even though some impacts are likely to suck carbon dioxide from the air.

Carbon might be freed to the air by a projected shift to drier conditions in some areas, for instance in the east Amazon rainforest. But that could be partly offset if temperatures rise in the Arctic, allowing more plants to grow.

Warmer soils might accelerate the respiration of tiny organisms, releasing extra carbon dioxide to the air. Wetlands or oceans may also release carbon if temperatures rise.

Frank said it was hard to say how the new findings might have altered estimates in a report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 that world temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 Celsius by 2100.

“Of the models that did include the carbon cycle, our results suggests that those with slightly below average feedbacks might be more accurate,” he said. “But we can’t now say exactly what sort of temperature range that would imply.”

Now that the IPCC has admitted one problem, it is obvious that everyone is going to go through every claim with a fine-tooth comb. For the sake of the IPCC, I hope that there aren’t more problems discovered. If there are, then the entire global warming conversation will take a significant move towards skepticism.  It is interesting that this is almost precisely the problem that Michael Crichton described in his novel on global warming “A State of Fear” and why he spoke out about the issue of bad scientific discover.

The United Nations climate change panel based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain peaks on a student essay and an article in a mountaineering magazine, a British newspaper reported.

In a recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa were caused by global warming.

The report referred to two papers as the source of the information, but the Sunday Telegraph says one of the sources quoted was actually an article published in a magazine for mountaineers.

The article was based on anecdotal evidence about the changes the authors were witnessing during climbs.

The newspaper says the other source was a dissertation written by a geography student who was studying for a master’s degree at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

The dissertation reportedly quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The claims risk causing fresh embarrassment for the IPCC, which had to apologise earlier this month over inaccurate forecasts about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

The IPCC claimed in the 938-page Fourth Assessment Report that the glaciers in the Himalayas could vanish in 30 years.

Though the report spurred politicians around the world to vow action against climate change, it emerged the claim was based on a conversation between a journalist and a single Indian scientist a decade ago.

The IPCC has acknowledged the grim prediction on the fate of the glaciers had been “poorly substantiated” and was a lapse in standards.

Last November, U.N. climate chief Rajendra Pachauri delivered a blistering rebuke to India’s environment minister for casting doubt on the notion that global warming was causing the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers.

“We have a very clear idea of what is happening,” the chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told the Guardian newspaper. “I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”

Then again, when it comes to unsubstantiated research it’s hard to beat the IPCC, whose 2007 report insisted that the glaciers—which feed the rivers that in turn feed much of South Asia—were very likely to nearly disappear by the year 2035. “The receding and thinning of Himalayan glaciers,” it wrote in its supposedly definitive report, “can be attributed primarily to the [sic] global warming due to increase in anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases.”

It turns out that this widely publicized prediction was taken from a 2005 report from the World Wildlife Fund, which based it on a comment by Indian glacier expert Syed Hasnain from 1999. Mr. Hasnian now says he was “misquoted.” Even more interesting is that the IPCC was warned in 2006 by leading glaciologist Georg Kaser that the 2035 forecast was baseless. “This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude,” Mr. Kaser told the Agence France-Presse. “It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”

On Wednesday, the IPCC got around to acknowledging that the claim was “poorly substantiated,” though Mr. Pachauri also suggested it amounted to little more than a scientific typo. Yet the error is of a piece with other glib, and now debunked, global warming alarms.

Among them: that 1998 was the warmest year on record in the United States (it was 1934); that sea levels could soon rise by up to 20 feet and put Florida underwater (an 18-inch rise by the year 2100 is the more authoritative estimate); that polar bears are critically endangered by global warming (most polar bear populations appear to be stable or increasing); that—well, we could go on without even mentioning the climategate emails.

For the record, most Himalayan glaciers do seem to be retreating, and they have been “since the earliest recordings began around the middle of the nineteenth century,” according to a report from India’s ministry of environment and forests. The reasons are complex and still poorly understood, and we’re glad to see responsible scientists acknowledge as much. If more of them could help the IPCC get its facts straight, we might put more stock in its reports.

From Times Online:

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel’s assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.

“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.

Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC’s report was the responsibility of the panel’s Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on.

They were Dr Martin Parry, a British scientist now at Imperial College London, and Dr Osvaldo Canziani , an Argentine meteorologist. Neither was immediately available for comment.

“I don’t want to blame them, but typically the working group reports are managed by the Co-Chairs,” Dr Pachauri said. “Of course the Chair is there to facilitate things, but we have substantial amounts of delegation.”

He declined to blame the 25 authors and editors of the erroneous part of the report , who included a Filipino, a Mongolian, a Malaysian, an Indonesian, an Iranian, an Australian and two Vietnamese.

The “co-ordinating lead authors” were Rex Victor Cruz of the Philippines, Hideo Harasawa of Japan, Murari Lal of India and Wu Shaohong of China.

But Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist erroneously quoted as making the 2035 prediction, said that responsibility had to lie with them. “It is the lead authors — blame goes to them,” he told The Times. “There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report.”

He and other leading glaciologists pointed out at least five glaring errors in the relevant section.

It says the total area of Himalyan glaciers “will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035”. There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas.

A table below says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840m — a rate of 135.2m a year. The actual rate is only 23.5m a year.

The section says Himalayan glaciers are “receding faster than in any other part of the world” when many glaciologists say they are melting at about the same rate.

An entire paragraph is also attributed to the World Wildlife Fund, when only one sentence came from it, and the IPCC is not supposed to use such advocacy groups as sources.

Professor Hasnain, who was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, said that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008.

That was also the year he joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Dr Pachauri.

He said he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999, although he blamed the journalist for assigning the actual date.

He said that he did not tell Dr Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes at the time.

“I was keeping quiet as I was working here,” he said. “My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?”

Dr Pachauri also said he did not learn about the mistakes until they were reported in the media about 10 days ago, at which time he contacted other IPCC members. He denied keeping quiet about the errors to avoid disrupting the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen, or discouraging funding for TERI’s own glacier programme.

But he too admitted that it was “really odd” that none of the world’s leading glaciologists had pointed out the mistakes to him earlier. “Frankly, it was a stupid error,” he said. “But no one brought it to my attention.”

Much recent attention has been paid to the email about the “trick” and the effort to “hide the decline”. Climate scientists have complained that this email has been taken “out of context”. In this case, I’m not sure that it’s in their interests that this email be placed in context because the context leads right back to a meeting of IPCC authors in Tanzania, raising serious questions about the role of IPCC itself in “hiding the decline” in the Briffa reconstruction.

Relevant Climategate correspondence in the period (September-October 1999) leading up to the trick email is incomplete, but, in context, is highly revealing. There was a meeting of IPCC lead authors between Sept 1-3, 1999 to consider the “zero-order draft” of the Third Assessment Report. The emails provide clear evidence that IPCC had already decided to include a proxy diagram reconstructing temperature for the past 1000 years and that a version of the proxy diagram was presented at the Tanzania meeting showing the late twentieth century decline. I now have a copy of the proxy diagram presented at this meeting (see below).

The emails show that the late 20th century decline in the Briffa reconstruction was perceived by IPCC as “diluting the message”, that “everyone in the room at IPCC” thought that the Briffa decline was a “problem” and a “potential distraction/detraction”, that this was then the “most important issue” in chapter 2 of the IPCC report and that there was “pressure” on Briffa and other authors to show a “nice tidy story” of “unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more”. [Update Dec 11 - see note at bottom on the chronology. Comments from readers have clarified that the issue at the Arusha meeting was that the Briffa reconstruction "diluted the message" more through its overall inconsistency as opposed to the decline, which was still relatively attenuated in the Arusha version. After the Arusha meeting, Briffa hastily re-calculated his reconstruction sending a new version to Mann on Oct 5, 1999 and it was this hastily re-done version that introduced the very severe decline that was hidden in the First Order Draft and Jones WMO Report]

The chronology in today’s posts show that the version of the Briffa reconstruction shown in the subsequent proxy diagram in the IPCC “First Order Draft” (October 27, 1999), presumably prepared under the direction of IPCC section author Mann, deleted the inconvenient portion (post-1960) of the Briffa reconstruction, together with other modifications that had the effect of not “diluting the message”.

Professor Phil Jones has today announced that he will stand aside as Director of the Climatic Research Unit until the completion of an independent Review resulting from allegations following the hacking and publication of emails from the Unit.

Professor Jones said: “What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible.  After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director’s role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this.  The Review process will have my full  support.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Edward Acton said: “I have accepted Professor Jones’s offer to stand aside during this period. It is an important step to ensure that CRU can continue to operate normally and the independent review can conduct its work into the allegations.

“We will announce details of the Independent Review, including its terms of reference, timescale and the chair, within days. I am delighted that Professor Peter Liss, FRS, CBE, will become acting director.”

Let us hope that this investigation is fair, complete, and unbiased. Anyone taking bets?

MagicJavaTV put out a slide show in the form of a YouTube video.  It is a great overview of the people involved in this recent revelation.

ClimateGate Who’s Who

When I first saw the release for this investigation, it seemed a bit suspicious. It did not contain any formatting, contact information, or logos.  However, I have confirmed that, as of this writing, the link to the announcement is live on the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences website (see Climate Change issue in the right column).

I am a bit skeptical that this investigation will be fair and complete but at least it is a first step to getting to the bottom of the issue.

University Reviewing Recent Reports on Climate Information

        Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals. In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.

        In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised.

Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process
Eduardo Zorita, November 2009

Short answer: because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.

A longer answer: My voice is not very important. I belong to the climate-research infantry, publishing a few papers per year, reviewing a few manuscript per year and participating in a few research projects. I do not form part of important committees, nor I pursue a public awareness of my activities. My very minor task in the public arena was to participate as a contributing author in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.

By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication. My area of research happens to be the climate of the past millennia, where I think I am appreciated by other climate-research ’soldiers’. And it happens that some of my mail exchange with Keith Briffa and Timothy Osborn can be found in the CRU-files made public recently on the internet.

To the question of legality or ethicalness of reading those files I will write a couple of words later.

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the ‘pleasure’ to experience all this in my area of research.

I thank explicitely Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn for their work in the formulation of one Chapter of the IPCC report. As it destills from these emails, they withstood the evident pressure of other IPCC authors, not experts in this area of research, to convey a distorted picture of our knowledge of the hockey-stick graph.

Is legal or ethical to read the CRU files? I am not a layer. It seems that if the files had been hacked this would constitute an illegal act. If they have been leaked it could be a whistle blower action protected by law. I think it is not unethical to read them. Once published, I feel myself entitled to read how some researchers tried to influence reviewers to scupper the publication of our work on the ‘hockey stick graph’ or to read how some IPCC authors tried to exclude this work from the IPCC Report on very dubious reasons. Also, these mails do not contain any personal information at all. They are an account of many dull daily activities of typical climatologists, together with a realistic account of very troubling professional behavior.

Thank you to Daily Politics for initially showing this video.  You can go there for a more complete interview.

Climate Change Bombshell: Dr. Tim Ball on the hacked CRU emails

First, catch the people responsible for breaking into the property of the University of East Anglia. Prosecute the offenders to the fullest extent of the law. I am not versed in the laws of the UK but I would assume that each document and email that was illegally stolen from those servers would be an individual count of theft, so the parties involved would be liable for several thousand counts of theft. No one should ever break the law to further their political interest (and remember there was nothing purely scientific in these emails – they are simply emails with opinions and, as such, are not facts). Breaking the law is simply not a way to discuss the scientific relevance of information. So just as I condemn Mr. Al Gore, former Vice President of the US, for suggesting civil disobedience, I condemn the stealing of information from the University.

I sincerely hope that no personal information was stolen to the point that any of the senders or recipients have their personal security or wealth compromised. While we all know that emails are not incredibly secure, the stories of identity theft are countless. It would be a travesty if this crime caused personal harm to any involved. Some of these emails reveal personal information and information about family members so this is a serious issue.

I have reviewed a few hundred of the emails that were stolen.  I had nothing to do with the stealing of these files but they are now readily available on the web so I looked at them. For the vast majority of the emails that I have read, the conversation was the innocent discussion of the global warming topic and typically was regarding the proxy information used to guess at temperatures before decent data gathering techniques and tools were deployed (yes, some would argue that we still don’t have that accomplished). As I stated above, these emails really have no data in them – they are primarily the opinion of the writer of the individual email.

While the emails are only opinion, that opinion is quite unsettling in many ways. Scientists should be, first and foremost, discoverers of the truth. No scientist should ever care which way the data leads them. If the data supports their hypothesis, that is fine. If the data refutes their hypothesis, that is also fine.

After reading the random emails that I have read, I do not feel that a single scientist had his email stolen! If you agree with me that a scientist must first be concerned with the whole truth, then no one that I read would qualify as a scientist! The number of attempts to hide data, modify data, and silence discussion was unnerving and completely unprofessional!

I REPEAT IN CAPS: THESE MEN CANNOT BE SCIENTISTS BECAUSE THEY VIOLATE THE FIRST STANDARD FOR ALL SCIENCE – LET THE DATA DRIVE THE CONCLUSION!

These are the same non-scientists that much of the IPCC conclusions are based on. These gentlemen do not have the authority to stand up and say that they have examined the evidence and the conclusion is obvious. Rather, if they were true scientists they would stand up and explain that some data leads them to one conclusion but a great deal of data, leads them to another conclusion.

We should throw out the entire IPCC findings, fire the people involved, and start over with complete transparency of processes and data. If global warming is found to be true with full transparency of research then that is fine. If the data suggests that we are all not going to die in the desert or a massive flood, so much the better.

I am perfectly disgusted with much of what I read. In particular, Mr. Jones, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Mann, Mr. Wahl, Mr. Ammann and many of the others should, collectively, be ashamed of themselves. They are a disgrace to the title: scientist.

To substantiate my point, I leave you with a small sampling of text from some of the emails.

Email: 1219239172.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Revised version the Wengen paper
Date: Wed Aug 20 09:32:52 2008
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@meteo.psu.edu>

    Gavin,
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
        Keith/Tim still getting FOI requests as well as MOHC and Reading. All our
    FOI officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions
    not to respond – advice they got from the Information Commissioner. As an
    aside and just between us, it seems that Brian Hoskins has withdrawn himself
    from the WG1 Lead nominations. It seems he doesn’t want to have to deal with
    this hassle.
        The FOI line we’re all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI – the
   skeptics
    have been told this. Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant info
    the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t
    have an obligation to pass it on.
    Cheers
    Phil

Email: 1107454306.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: For your eyes only
Date: Thu Feb  3 13:11:46 2005

    Mike,
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
    Phil
   At 15:26 02/02/2005, you wrote:

     Thanks Phil,
     Yes, we’ve learned out lesson about FTP. We’re going to be very careful in the future
     what gets put there. Scott really screwed up big time when he established that directory
     so that Tim could access the data.
     Yeah, there is a freedom of information act in the U.S., and the contrarians are going
     to try to use it for all its worth. But there are also intellectual property rights
     issues, so it isn’t clear how these sorts of things will play out ultimately in the U.S.
     I saw the paleo draft (actually I saw an early version, and sent Keith some minor
     comments). It looks very good at present–will be interesting to see how they deal w/
     the contrarian criticisms–there will be many. I’m hoping they’ll stand firm (I believe
     they will–I think the chapter has the right sort of personalities for that)…
     Will keep you updated on stuff…
     talk to you later,
     mike
     At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

      Mike,
         I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
      Just sent loads of station data to Scott.  Make sure he documents everything better
      this time !  And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is
     trawling
      them.  The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear
     there
      is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than
     send
      to anyone.  Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within
      20 days? – our does !  The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.
     We also
      have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried
      email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code.  He
      has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.  IPR should be relevant
     here,
      but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere
      to it !
    — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
      Cheers
      Phil
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1212073451.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@meteo.psu.edu>
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

          Mike,

              Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
    Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
        Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?  I don’t
    have his new email address.
        We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
    I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
    Cheers
    Phil

   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1189722851.txt

   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
—–Original Message—–
From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:30 AM
To: Wahl, Eugene R; Caspar Ammann
Subject: Wahl/Ammann

  Gene/Caspar,
     Good to see these two out. Wahl/Ammann doesn’t appear to be in CC’s
  online first, but comes up if you search.
     You likely know that McIntyre will check this one to make sure it
hasn’t
  changed since the IPCC close-off date July 2006!
     Hard copies of the WG1 report from CUP have arrived here today.

  Ammann/Wahl – try and change the Received date!  Don’t give those
skeptics something
  to amuse themselves with.

  Cheers
  Phil

Email: 1047388489.txt

From: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>,rbradley@geo.umass.edu, mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu,srutherford@gso.uri.edu,tcrowley@duke.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Soon & Baliunas
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:14:49 -0500
Cc: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk,jto@u.arizona.edu,drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu, keith.alverson@pages.unibe.ch,mmaccrac@comcast.net,jto@u.arizona.edu, mann@virginia.edu

   Thanks Phil,
   (Tom: Congrats again!)
   The Soon & Baliunas paper couldn’t have cleared a ‘legitimate’ peer review process
   anywhere. That leaves only one possibility–that the peer-review process at Climate
   Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board. And it isn’t just De
   Frietas, unfortunately I think this group also includes a member of my own department…
   The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at “Climate Research” (it was a mediocre
   journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite ‘purpose’).
   Folks might want to check out the editors and review editors:
   [1]http://www.int-res.com/journals/cr/crEditors.html
   In fact, Mike McCracken first pointed out this article to me, and he and I have discussed
   this a bit. I’ve cc’d Mike in on this as well, and I’ve included Peck too. I told Mike that
   I believed our only choice was to ignore this paper. They’ve already achieved what they
   wanted–the claim of a peer-reviewed paper. There is nothing we can do about that now, but
   the last thing we want to do is bring attention to this paper, which will be ignored by the
   community on the whole…
   It is pretty clear that thee skeptics here have staged a bit of a coup, even in the
   presence of a number of reasonable folks on the editorial board (Whetton, Goodess, …). My
   guess is that Von Storch is actually with them (frankly, he’s an odd individual, and I’m
   not sure he isn’t himself somewhat of a skeptic himself), and without Von Storch on their
   side, they would have a very forceful personality promoting their new vision.
   There have been several papers by Pat Michaels, as well as the Soon & Baliunas paper, that
   couldn’t get published in a reputable journal.
   This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the
   “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal!
   So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a
   legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
   research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.  We would also
   need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently
   sit on the editorial board…
   What do others think?
   mike
     — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1089318616.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul  8 16:30:16 2004

    Mike,
       Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY – don’t pass on. Relevant paras are the last
    2 in section 4 on p13.  As I said it is worded carefully due to Adrian knowing Eugenia
    for years. He knows the’re wrong, but he succumbed to her almost pleading with him
    to tone it down as it might affect her proposals in the future !
       I didn’t say any of this, so be careful how you use it – if at all. Keep quiet also
    that you have the pdf.
      The attachment is a very good paper – I’ve been pushing Adrian over the last weeks
    to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also
    for ERA-40. The basic message is clear – you have to put enough surface and sonde
    obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand
    out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.
       The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also
    losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see
   it.
       I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep
   them
    out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
    Cheers
    Phil
      — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

This movie explains some of the reasons of concern for monitoring the increase in temperatures that we have felt since the 1960s.  It is very well done and enjoyable to watch.  Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, it admits that this is not pure imagery but some CGI has been done.

If you can handle the bandwidth, you will see better graphics here rather than watching the embedded YouTube video below.

A case in point is a graph from the USGS fact sheet:

Two conclusions are fairly obvious from the above graph.  First, the size of glacier recession has been occurring almost since the time when we started measuring the size back in the late 50s.  The second is that the reduction seemed to increase rather rapidly in the late 80s and early 90s. If we draw a straight line to average the reduction from 1960 to 1975, we will see a totally different rate as compared to the line that averages 1980 to 2005.

There are several factors that influence the size and positive or negative growth of a glacier and if you read some of the Related Posts below you will learn much more.  It isn’t all the average temperature in the valley. So it is hard to say that there is a direct causation especially since the larger the glacier, the more likely it will affect its micro-climate to create the conditions to allow it to keep growing (it chills the air above it promoting snowfall). Therefore, there is a solid line of reasoning that says that once a glacier retreats a certain percentage, it will continue to rapidly shrink.

However, if we compare the glacier curve above with the famed Mauna Loa CO2 readings, you see that in the late 80s we tripped over the feared 340PPM which many feel is the trigger point for CO2 causing real damage to the climate. So there is a real argument to be made that CO2 is the cause.

The answer to the question: I don’t think we really know.  It is to complicated of a climate model for us to completely understand. As I have argued before (primarily in the comments of various posts such as this one), I don’t believe this stuff one way or the other. I think we need to spend a lot of time and effort to figure this out definitively. The answer to the question is simply too important to guess at.

Evidently the original author didn’t like his review and challenged him publicly.  This is fantastic as it allows for the open sharing and discussing of the ideas, thoughts and conclusions.  There needs to be more of this type of exchange on critical issues such as climate change.

Climate Skeptics basic charge is that the increase in disruptions is more a result in differences in data collection over time than it is a change in climate disruptions.  Such a rapid increase in events is almost surely not solely due to weather.

So, in keeping with this dialogue, Climate Skeptic has replied.  The reply is almost better reading and more educational than the original so please click through and read the Climate Skeptic review.

Which leads one to wonder if there is a better source of data for understanding power outages over time?  Is there a reputable source that keeps track of disturbances in the system? Of course there is!  One company that makes a living out of providing real-time information on the health of the utility industry is Genscape.  I don’t know how far back Genscape’s data is gathered but you would think the government would make efforts to use a better source – unless of course the government doesn’t like the conclusions that real data will lead to!

One of the major trade rags in engineering is C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News). It is edited by Mr. Rudy Baum. If you aren’t in that trade, you would probably never pick up an issue so you may not be familiar with it. I haven’t read the publication in a long time but was recently made aware of a bit of controversy by Climate Depot. While the readers of C&EN are likely not climatologists, the science of CO2 and its affect on the atmosphere is very steeped in chemistry which their target market knows a bit about.

Mr. Baum wrote an opinion in June that dealt with global warming and some of the recent politics of the cap and trade legislation. While Mr. Baum is certainly entitled to his opinion on this subject, it appears that his readers were not very happy with his stance and some of the phrasing that he used. I won’t reproduce the editorial here as you can jump over read it for yourself.  I will bring out a few excerpts that have been published in the recent letters to the editor.  Some of them even call for the firing of the man!

I am not going to identify the individual writer of each comment by name.  I don’t think I have that right.  I will simply suggest that you read all of the letters to the editor that are posted for July 27, 2009.

…Instead, what should be a noble organization is turning into another left-wing mouthpiece. I don’t agree with your climate-change views, and I am not happy that you continue to use the pulpit of your editorials to promote your left-wing opinions…

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…Although under your editorial leadership, I suspect we would be treated to a biased and skewed version of scientific debate. I think its time to find a new editor.

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I am always intrigued by claims that science is settled, especially when it comes to something as complex as climate. Rudy Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded?
…

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…It makes sense to reduce the combustion of carbon-based fuels, if only to preserve their use as feedstocks for industry. However, I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved….

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Your editorial in the June 22 issue of C&EN was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!
…

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…The more people try to trivialize global warming, the more we and our descendants will suffer the results, some of which have already been quantified (for example, glacier melting and polar ice disappearing). Weather disruptions and shore erosion, for example, will begin to occur. The people who deny global warming are in the same class as those who rejected the negative effects of DDT, those who denied the negative effects of CFCs on the atmosphere, and so on.


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…The only demonstrated way forward is nuclear power. But those who oppose nuclear power are somewhat similar to climate-change deniers. I predict nuclear power will be accepted when the fear of climate change exceeds the fear of nuclear power. When might this happen? Not soon. Among the population at large, climate-change fears are not even in the top 10 worries.


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…I can’t accept as facts the reports of federal agencies, because they have become political and are more likely to support the regime in power than not. Baum’s attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me.


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Your comments about the climate-change deniers are right on target. In fact, your closing paragraph, “Sow doubt; make up statistics,” etc., was one of the best summaries I’ve seen of the deceitful practices that the deniers are allowed to get away with….

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…We cannot continue to burn organic fuels at billions of point sources without usefully recapturing the carbon (utilities should be able to do this)….

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I am furious that idiots such as Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas) helped pass this cap-and-trade bill. How much of a payoff are they getting from General Electric to pass this stupid bill?…

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Having worked as an atmospheric chemist for many years, I have extensive experience with environmental issues, and I usually agree with Rudy Baum’s editorials. But his use of “climate-change deniers” to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific….

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…Given the climate’s complexity and these and other uncertainties, are we justified in legislating major increases in our energy costs unilaterally guided only by a moral imperative to “do our part” for Earth’s climate? I am among many environmentally responsible citizen-scientists who think this is stupid, both because our emissions reductions will be dwarfed by increases elsewhere (China and India, for example) and because the models have large uncertainties….

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…Finally, I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other “free-market fanatics,” and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.

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The editor’s page of C&EN should not be a political page. Rudy Baum has been pushing the global warming (conveniently changed now to “climate change”) hypothesis as fact very strongly for some time now. He denigrates as foolish and ignorant folks who do not swallow the global warming hypothesis and his comments are rather arrogant….

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…Are the temperature measurements accurate? Eighty-nine percent of the 860 monitoring stations inspected by meteorologist Anthony Watts and volunteers from the surfacestations.org project failed to meet the National Weather Service’s siting requirements (they were too close to artificial heating or radiating/reflecting sources). This is not the only information that does not support Baum’s hypothesis….

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…I would like to see the ACS Board cap Baum’s political pen and trade him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.

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In the interest of brevity, I can limit my response to the diatribe of the editor-in-chief in the June 22 edition of C&EN to one word: Disgusting.

There are many more comments in the letters to Mr. Baum.  Many of them are quite well written and make excellent points.  I encourage you to go there and spend a few minutes reading them.