Another CRU Email...

This one put a smile on my face.  A scientist I'd not heard of before (Tom Wigley) takes the warmenist scientists to task:

From: Tom Wigley
To: jan.goudriaan@staff.tpe.wau.nl, grassl_h@gateway.wmo.ch, Klaus Hasselmann , Jill Jaeger , rector@iss.nl, oriordan@enviro.uct.ac.za, uctpa84@ucl.ac.uk, john@pik-potsdam.de, mparry@geog.ucl.ac.uk, pier.vellinga@ivm.vu.nlam.de
Subject: Re: ATTENTION. Invitation to influence Kyoto.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:52:09 -0700 (MST)
Reply-to: Tom Wigley
Cc: Mike Hulme , t.mitchell@uea.ac.uk

Dear Eleven,

I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get
others to endorse it.  Not only do I disagree with the content of
this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the
IPCC "view" when you say that "the latest IPCC assessment makes a
convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions."  In contrast
to the one-sided opinion expressed in your letter, IPCC WGIII SAR and TP3
review the literature and the issues in a balanced way presenting
arguments in support of both "immediate control" and the spectrum of more
cost-effective options.  It is not IPCC's role to make "convincing cases"
for any particular policy option; nor does it.  However, most IPCC readers
would draw the conclusion that the balance of economic evidence favors the
emissions trajectories given in the WRE paper.  This is contrary to your
statement.

This is a complex issue, and your misrepresentation of it does you a
dis-service.  To someone like me, who knows the science, it is
apparent that you are presenting a personal view, not an informed,
balanced scientific assessment.  What is unfortunate is that this will not
be apparent to the vast majority of scientists you have contacted.  In
issues like this, scientists have an added responsibility to keep their
personal views separate from the science, and to make it clear to others
when they diverge from the objectivity they (hopefully) adhere to in their
scientific research.  I think you have failed to do this.

Your approach of trying to gain scientific credibility for your personal
views by asking people to endorse your letter is reprehensible.  No
scientist who wishes to maintain respect in the community should ever
endorse any statement unless they have examined the issue fully
themselves.  You are asking people to prostitute themselves by doing just
this!  I fear that some will endorse your letter, in the mistaken belief
that you are making a balanced and knowledgeable assessment of the science
-- when, in fact, you are presenting a flawed view that neither accords
with IPCC nor with the bulk of the scientific and economic literature on
the subject.

Let me remind you of the science.  The issue you address is one of the
timing of emissions reductions below BAU.  Note that this is not the same
as the timing of action -- and note that your letter categorically
addresses the former rather than the latter issue.  Emissions reduction
timing is epitomized by the differences between the Sxxx and WRExxx
pathways towards CO2 concentration stabilization.  It has been clearly
demonstrated in the literature that the mitigation costs of following an
Sxxx pathway are up to five times the cost of following an equivalent
WRExxx pathway.  It has also been shown that there is likely to be an
equal or greater cost differential for non-Annex I countries, and that the
economic burden in Annex I countries would fall disproportionately on
poorer people.

Furthermore, since there has been no credible analysis of the benefits
(averted impacts) side of the equation, it is impossible to assess fully
the benefits differential between the Sxxx and WRExxx stabilization
profiles.  Indeed, uncertainties in predicting the regional details of
future climate change that would arise from following these pathways, and
the even greater uncertainties that attend any assessment of the impacts
of such climate changes, preclude any credible assessment of the relative
benefits.  As shown in the WRE paper (Nature v. 379, pp. 240-243), the
differentials at the global-mean level are so small, at most a few tenths
of a degree Celsius and a few cm in sea level rise and declining to
minuscule amounts as the pathways approach the SAME target, that it is
unlikely that an analysis of future climate data could even distinguish
between the pathways.  Certainly, given the much larger noise at the
regional level, and noting that even the absolute changes in many
variables at the regional level remain within the noise out to 2030 or
later, the two pathways would certainly be indistinguishable at the
regional level until well into the 21st century.

The crux of this issue is developing policies for controlling greenhouse
gas emissions where the reductions relative to BAU are neither too much,
too soon (which could cause serious economic hardship to those who are
most vulnerable, poor people and poor countries) nor too little, too late
(which could lead to future impacts that would be bad for future
generations of the same groups).  Our ability to quantify the economic
consequences of "too much, too soon" is far better than our ability to
quantify the impacts that might arise from "too little, too late" -- to
the extent that we cannot even define what this means!  You appear to be
putting too much weight on the highly uncertain impacts side of the
equation.  Worse than this, you have not even explained what the issues
are.  In my judgment, you are behaving in an irresponsible way that does
you little credit.  Furthermore, you have compounded your sin by actually
putting a lie into the mouths of innocents ("after carefully examining the
question of timing of emissions reductions, we find the arguments against
postponement to be more compelling").  People who endorse your letter will
NOT have "carefully examined" the issue.

When scientists color the science with their own PERSONAL views or make
categorical statements without presenting the evidence for such
statements, they have a clear responsibility to state that that is what
they are doing.  You have failed to do so.  Indeed, what you are doing is,
in my view, a form of dishonesty more subtle but no less egregious than
the statements made by the greenhouse skeptics, Michaels, Singer et al.  I
find this extremely disturbing.

Tom Wigley


On Tue, 11 Nov 1997, Tim Mitchell wrote:

> Reference:  Statement of European Climate Scientists on Actions to Protect
> Global Climate
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> Attached at the end of this email is a Statement, the purpose of which is
> to bolster or increase governmental and public support for controls of
> emissions of greenhouse gases in European and other industrialised
> countries in the negotiations during the Kyoto Climate Conference in
> December 1997. The Statement was drafted by a number of prominent European
> scientists concerned with the climate issue, 11 of whom are listed after
> the Statement and who are acting as formal sponsors of the Statement.
>
> *****  The 11 formal sponsors are: *****
>
> Jan Goudriaan        Hartmut Grassl    Klaus Hasselmann    Jill J‰ger
> Hans Opschoor        Tim O'Riordan        Martin Parry        David Pearce
> Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber            Wolfgang Seiler    Pier Vellinga
>
> After endorsements from many hundreds of other European climate-related
> scientists are collected (and we hope that you agree to be one of these), the
> Statement will be brought to the attention of key decision-makers (e.g. EU
> Kyoto negotiaters and Environment Ministers) and other opinion-makers in
> Europe (e.g. editorial boards of newspapers) during the week beginning 24th
> November. The UK and other European WWF offices have agreed to assist in
> this activity, although the preparation of the Statement itself has in no
> way been initiated or influenced by WWF or any other body.  This is an
> initiative taken by us alone and supported by our 11 Statement sponsors.
>
> WHAT WE ASK FROM YOU
>
> We would very much like you to endorse this Statement.  Unfortunately, at
> this time we can no longer take into account any suggested modifications.
> Nevertheless, we hope that it reflects your views closely enough so that
> you can support it.  If you agree with the Statement, then:
>
> 1. PLEASE IMMEDIATELY FILL OUT the form below and either reply via email
> (preferably) or telefax (only if necessary) to the indicated fax number.
> Replies received after Wednesday 19th November will not be included.  If
> replying by email please do not use the 'reply all' option.  If this
> invitation has been forwarded from a colleague, please make sure your reply
> is directed to the originators of this invitation, namely:
> t.mitchell@uea.ac.uk (on behalf of Mike Hulme and Joe Alcamo).
>
> 2. We have identified about 700 climate-related scientists in Europe who
> are receiving this email directly from us.  If you feel it is appropriate,
> PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE to up to three colleagues in your country who
> are working in climate-related fields, who you think may support the
> Statement and whom we have not targeted.  To identify colleagues whom we
> have already invited you can examine the email address list we have used
> for your country in the email header (or else appended to the end of this
> email).
>
> We realize that you are very busy, but this action may have a very positive
> influence on public discussions during the critical period leading up to
> Kyoto and during the Conference itself.
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Michael Hulme, Climatic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich
> Joseph Alcamo, University of Kassel, Germany
>
> (On behalf of the other signatories of the Statement)
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
>
> I agree to have my name placed on the list of scientists that endorse the
> Statement of European Climate Scientists on Actions to Protect Global
> Climate.
>
> Full Title and Name                       
>
> Affiliation                        Country
>
> Signature (for fax replies only)                       
>
> Date
>
> Other comments:
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
>
> We would prefer you to return this email message to us by email, having
> duly completed the form above.  You should be sending the form to:
>
>                            ****************************
>                            **                        **
>                            **  t.mitchell@uea.ac.uk  **
>                            **                        **
>                            ****************************
>
> If you would rather not use the email reply function, then please print out
> the form above and fax it (filled in) to:
> 
> "Attention: European Climate Statement"
> Climatic Research Unit,  University of East Anglia
> Telefax: +44 1603 507784
>  
> ____________________________________________________________________________
>
>
> Statement of European Climate Scientists on Actions to Protect Global Climate
> =============================================================================
>
> In 1992, the nations of the world took a significant step to protect global
> climate by signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year,
> at the coming Climate Summit in Kyoto*, they have the chance to take
> another important step.  It is our belief that the nations of the world
> should agree to substantive action for controlling the growth of greenhouse
> gas emissions.
> 
> Our opinion is bolstered by the latest assessment of scientific knowledge
> carried out by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The
> IPCC reported that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human
> influence on global climate". They also gave examples of observed climate
> change up to now, including:
>
> ∑ Global mean surface air temperature has increased by between 0.3 to 0.6
> degrees Celsius since the late 19th century, and recent years have been the
> warmest since 1860.
> ∑ Global sea level has risen between 10 and 25 centimeters over the past
> 100 years.
>
> Based on estimates from computer models, the IPCC also maintained that
> humanity will have a continuing and cumulative effect on climate in the
> future. Future society may find that some climate impacts are positive, as
> in the possible increase in rainfall and crop yield in some dry regions;
> and society may be able to adapt to some impacts, such as by building dikes
> against rising sea level. But many, if not most, climate impacts will
> increase risks to society and nature, and will be irreversible on the human
> time scale. Among the possible changes are further increases in sea level,
> the transformation of forest and other ecosystems, modifications of crop
> yield, and shifts in the geographic range of pests and pathogens. It is
> also possible that infrequent but disastrous events, such as droughts and
> floods, could occur more often in some regions. At particular risk are
> people living on arid or semi-arid land, in low-lying coastal areas and
> islands, in water-limited or flood-prone regions, or in mountainous
> regions. The risk to nature will be significant in the many areas where
> ecosystems cannot quickly adapt to changing climate, or where they are
> already under stress from environmental pollution or other factors.
>
> Because of these risks, we consider it important for nations to set limits
> on the increase of global temperature due to human interference with the
> climate system. We recommend that European and other industrialized nations
> use such long-term climate protection goals as a guide to determining
> short-term emission targets. This approach has been adopted, for example,
> by the European Union and the Alliance of Small Island States.
>
> Some may say that action to control emissions should be postponed because
> of the scientific uncertainties of climate change and its impact. Our view
> is that the risks and irreversibility of many climate impacts require
> "precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent, or minimize the causes of
> climate change", as stated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
>
> We also acknowledge that economic arguments have been put forward for
> postponing the control of emissions in Europe and elsewhere. However, after
> carefully examining the question of timing of emission reductions, we find
> the arguments against postponement to be more compelling. First, postponing
> action could shift an unfair burden for more severe reductions of emissions
> onto future generations. Second, it will lead to a greater accumulation of
> greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and hence make it more difficult to
> prevent future climate change when action is finally taken. Third, the
> latest IPCC assessment makes a convincing economic case for immediate
> control of emissions.
>  
> Rather than delay, we strongly urge governments in Europe and other
> industrialized countries to agree to control greenhouse emissions as part
> of a Kyoto agreement. Some controls can be achieved by reducing fossil fuel
> use at little or no net cost through accelerated improvements in the
> efficiency of energy systems, the faster introduction of renewable energy
> sources, and the reduction of subsidies for fossil fuel use. Moreover,
> reducing the use of fossil fuels will also reduce local and regional air
> pollution, and their related impacts on human health and ecosystems.
>
> We believe that the European Union (EU) proposal is consistent with long
> term climate protection. This proposal would reduce key greenhouse gas
> emissions by 15% from industrialized countries (so-called Annex I
> countries) by the year 2010 (relative to year 1990). Although stronger
> emission reductions will be needed in the future, we see the EU, or
> similar, goal as a positive first step "to prevent dangerous anthropogenic
> interference with the climate system" and to lessen risks to society and
> nature.   Such substantive action is needed now.
>
> *Third Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate
> Change, Kyoto, Japan, December, 1997.
>
> Signed:
>
> Jan Goudriaan            Hartmut Grassl        Klaus Hasselmann
> Jill J‰ger            Hans Opschoor            Tim O'Riordan
> Martin Parry             David Pearce            Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber
> Wolfgang Seiler        Pier Vellinga   
> ____________________________________________________________________________
>
>
> ************************************************************************
> **  This message originated from the                                    
> **     Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.  
> **  It was sent out by                                                  
> **     Mike Hulme and Tim Mitchell on behalf of the 11 key signatories. 
> **  If you object to being on this email address list,                  
> **     please accept our apologies and inform us;                       
> **     we will then remove your address from the list.                  
> **  Please direct any comments to:                                      
> **     t.mitchell@uea.ac.uk                                                
> ************************************************************************
>
> The list below consists of the people with UK email addresses to whom this
> message has been sent:
>
> all CRU staff
> Adger, N
> Alcock, Graeme
> Allan, P
> Allan, Richard P
> Anderson, Dennis
> Armstrong, Adrian
> Arnell, N W
> Audsley, Eric
> Baker, Richard
> Baran, A J
> Barker, Terry
> Benestad, R E
> Bentham, G
> Bigg, G
> Boucher, Keith R
> Bouma, D
> Bramwell, Penny
> Brooks, Roger
> Brown, Philip RA
> Brugge, Roger
> Bullock, P
> Burkhardt, Ulrike
> Butterfield, Ruth
> Cai, Xiaoming
> Cannell, Melvyn
> Carling, Bob
> Castleford, John
> Chan, Angela H Y
> Clark, Douglas B
> Cluckie, I D
> Collins, Matthew
> Colman, Andrew
> Connolley, William M
> Cornford, Dan
> Costigan, Peter
> Cox, Peter
> Cox, Peter M
> Cui, Zhiqiang
> Culf, Alastair
> Cullum, Dave
> Dale, Ian
> Davis, Gerald R
> Dewhurst, Nicola
> Doherty, Ruth
> Dokerty, T
> Dorling, S
> Downey, Ian
> Downing, Tom
> East, M.
> Easthope, Mark
> Evans, Sam
> Favis-Mortlock, David
> Ferris, Rachel
> Fisher, Helen
> Folland, Chris
> Foot, John S
> Ford, I J
> Fowler, David
> Friend, Andrew
> Fruh, Wolf-Gerrit
> Gallop, Rowland
> Gawith, Megan
> Geer, Alan
> George, Glen
> Gibson, J K
> Giles, Brian
> Goode, Helen Rachel
> Gregory, David
> Gregory, Jonathan
> Gregory, Ken
> Griggs, D
> Grubb, Michael
> Hannah, David M
> Hansen, Jim
> Harrison, Paula
> Hawksworth, Kevin Stuart
> Hedger, Merylyn
> Hewitt, Chris
> Highwood, Eleanor
> Holt, Chris
> Horton, Briony
> Houghton, J
> Houseago, Richenda
> Huntingford, Chris
> Hutchings, Jenny
> Ingram, John
> Ingram, W J
> Jackson, Tim
> Jakob, Christian
> Jeffree, Christopher E
> Jenkins, Geoff
> Johns, Tim
> Johnston, Peter
> Jolliffe, Ian
> Jones, Clive
> Jones, Colin
> Jordan, A
> Joyce, Andrew N
> Keen, Ann
> Kennedy, Hamid
> Kenworthy, Joan M
> Keramitsoglou, Iphigenia
> Kilsby, Chris
> King, Ben P
> King, John
> Kings, John
> Kniveton, Dom
> Lamptey, Benjamin Lantei
> Lary, David J
> Liss, P
> Livermore, Matt
> Lloyd, Colin
> Lynagh, Norman
> Marshall, David
> Marshall, Stewart
> Maskell, Kathy
> Matthews, B
> Mavromatis, Theodoros
> Mayes, Julian
> Mayr, Thomas
> McClatchey, John
> McGregor, Glenn Russell
> McKay, Douglas
> McLaren, Alison
> McMichael, Tony
> Medlyn, Belinda
> Merchant, Chris
> Mitchell, John
> Morison, James
> Morse, Andy
> Mulligan, Mark
> Murphy, James
> Murrill, A
> Nicholls, Robert
> Noguer, Maria
> Orr, John
> Palmer, Tim
> Palutikof, Jean
> Parker, David
> Parkinson, Stuart
> Parry, M
> Pedder, Mike
> Perry, Allen
> Pierce, Clive
> Pilling, C
> Pope, V D
> Pugh, D
> Ravetz, Jerome R
> Read, P L
> Rey, N
> Reynard, Nick
> Reynolds, David
> Roberts, D L
> Rosier, Suzanne
> Rounsevell, Mark
> Rowell, Dave
> Ryan, Sonja
> Sanderson, Michael G
> Scaife, Adam
> Sear, Chris
> Semenov, Mikhail
> Shackley, Simon
> Shao, Jianmin
> Shine, Keith P
> Simpson, I
> Simpson, V
> Sims, Graham
> Skea, Jim
> Slingo, Julia
> Smithson, Peter
> Snow, Keith
> Spellman, Greg
> Standley, Andy
> Stott, Peter
> Subak, S
> Sumner, Graham
> Sutton, R T
> Tait, Andrew
> Taylor, C M
> Tett, Simon
> Thorncroft, Chris
> Thornes, John E
> Thornton, Tim
> Thorpe, Robert
> Thuburn, John
> Todd, Martin
> Tullett, Michael
> Turner, R K
> Unwin, David
> Veal, Anthony
> Viterbo, Pedro
> Walker, Malcolm
> Wang, Kuoying
> Warrilow, David
> Washington, Richard
> Webb, Mark
> Wheeler, Tim
> Wigley, Tom
> Wilby, Rob
> Wild, Richard
> Williamson, P
> Woodward, Stephanie
> Wright, Peter
> Wynne, Brian
> Yamin, Farhana
>
>


       **********************************************************
       *Tom M.L. Wigley                        *
       *Senior Scientist                     *
       *National Center for Atmospheric Research                *
       *P.O. Box 3000                                *
       *Boulder, CO 80307-3000                    *
       *USA                                                     *
       *Phone: 303-497-2690                                     *
       *Fax: 303-497-2699                                       *
       *E-mail: wigley@ucar.edu                                 *
       **********************************************************

Quote of the Day...

By Mark Steyn, on President Obama:

About himself, the president speaks loudly. For America, he carries a small twig.

One CRU Email...

This morning, after my tea took effect and jogged my brain cells into something approaching operational capability, I decided to do a little original research into the 160 megabytes of data illegally hacked from the CRU.  My first attempt was to search for any files containing “FOIA” or “withhold”.  FOIA stands for Freedom Of Information Act, the legislation that gives Americans the right to request copies of any information created with public funds (as nearly all climate research in the U.S. is).  I chose this first search because I wondered if there was interesting material in this collection related to something that has bothered me the most about the climate research: the secrecy and opacity of the data used to drive the climate models.

One of the bedrock principles of the scientific method is the notion of reproducability.  Any sciencist proposing something new must provide the data required to let other scientists reproduce his or her results.  For example, if Alvin the physicist claimed to have found a way to create desktop fusion, he's obligated to provide all the information necessary for other physicists to reproduce – and thus verify or debunk – his work and his results.

Something that's bothered me from the beginning about the global warming proponents – the scientists, I mean – is that they have not published the data underlying their results.  They have persistently refused to do so, even when many credible arguments questioning their data sources exist.  To pick on just one example of this, the climate models all take as one of their inputs a series of surface temperature data.  This is an example of an important piece of data that must be disclosed to make the results reproducible.

These data are not simple records of a thermometer somewhere, as those thermometers did not exist over the entire time period of the data.  Instead, they are a complex amalgam of many sources of data, including both direct data (e.g., thermometer readings) and proxy data (e.g., the width of tree rings).  These data are a real challenge to try to distill into a single, simple series of temperatures over time.  There are many reasons: each set of contributing data covers different time periods, they have different granularity (there may be hourly thermometer readings, but tree rings can at best give you a guess at an annual average temperature), there may be missing readings, some readings may be anomalous for reasons that can't be determined now, different sets of data may have conflicting results, etc., etc.

The IPCC report was criticized by many, in my view completely rightfully, for not disclosing the means by which the temperature series data set was created from the underlying data.  The derived temperature series data was made available to all, and more recently (because of a FOIA request) the underlying data was made available – but the methods used in distilling the underlying data into the temperature series data has never been disclosed.  The scientists involved did their level best – and largely succeeded – in treating this as proprietary data that need not be disclosed.  The critics and skeptics have looked particularly hard at this temperatures series data because, frankly, it looks suspicious – there are many, many places where it simply looks implausible.

So, with that context, here's one of the emails I found in my search this morning.  I have bolded some of the passages I found particularly interesting and put a footnote number in, but otherwise this is an unedited copy of the email found in file 1231257056.txt:

From: Stephen H Schneider
To: santer1@llnl.gov
Subject: Re: [Fwd: data request]
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 10:50:56 -0800 (PST)
Cc: "David C. Bader" , Bill Goldstein , Pat Berge , Cherry Murray , George Miller , Anjuli Bamzai , Tomas Diaz De La Rubia , Doug Rotman , Peter Thorne , Leopold Haimberger , Karl Taylor , Tom Wigley , John Lanzante , Susan Solomon , Melissa Free , peter gleckler , "Philip D. Jones" , Thomas R Karl , Steve Klein , carl mears , Doug Nychka , Gavin Schmidt , Steven Sherwood , Frank Wentz

"Thanks" Ben for this, hi all and happy new year. I had a similar experience--but not FOIA since we at Climatic Change are a private institution--with Stephen McIntyre demanding that I have the Mann et al cohort publish all their computer codes for papers published in Climatic Change.  I put the question to the editorial board who debated it for weeks. The vast majority opinion was that scientists should give enough information on their data sources and methods so others who are scientifically capable can do their own brand of replication work, but that this does not extend to personal computer codes with all their undocumented sub routines etc. It would be odious requirement to have scientists document every line of code so outsiders could then just apply them instantly¹. Not only is this an intellectual property issue, but it would dramatically reduce our productivity since we are not in the business of producing software products for general consumption and have no resources to do so. The NSF, which funded the studies I published, concurred--so that ended that issue with Climatic Change at the time a few years ago.

This continuing pattern of harassment, as Ben rightly puts it in my opinion, in the name of due diligence is in my view an attempt to create a fishing expedition to find minor glitches or unexplained bits of code--which exist in nearly all our kinds of complex work--and then assert that the entire result is thus suspect². Our best way to deal with this issue of replication is to have multiple independent author teams, with their own codes and data sets, publishing independent work on the same topics--like has been done on the "hockey stick". That is how credible scientific replication should proceed.

Let the lawyers figure this out, but be sure that, like Ben is doing now, you disclose the maximum reasonable amount of information so competent scientists can do replication work, but short of publishing undocumented personalized codes etc. The end of the email Ben attached shows their intent--to discredit papers so they have no "evidentiary value in public policy"--what you resort to when you can't win the intellectual battle scientifically at IPCC or NAS.
 Good luck with this, and expect more of it as we get closer to international climate policy actions, We are witnessing the "contrarian battle of the bulge" now, and expect that all weapons will be used.
   Cheers, Steve
PS Please do not copy or forward this email³.

Stephen H. Schneider
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies,
Professor, Department of Biology and
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
Mailing address:
Yang & Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building - MC 4205
473 Via Ortega
Ph: 650 725 9978
F:  650 725 4387
Websites:  climatechange.net
           patientfromhell.org


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Santer"
To: "Peter Thorne" , "Leopold Haimberger" , "Karl Taylor" , "Tom Wigley" , "John Lanzante" , "Susan Solomon" , "Melissa Free" , "peter gleckler" , "Philip D. Jones" , "Thomas R Karl" , "Steve Klein" , "carl mears" , "Doug Nychka" , "Gavin Schmidt" , "Steven Sherwood" , "Frank Wentz"
Cc: "David C. Bader" , "Bill Goldstein" , "Pat Berge" , "Cherry Murray" , "George Miller" , "Anjuli Bamzai" , "Tomas Diaz De La Rubia" , "Doug Rotman"
Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2009 9:23:41 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [Fwd: data request]

Dear coauthors of the Santer et al. International Journal of Climatology paper (and other interested parties),

I am forwarding an email I received this morning from a Mr. Geoff Smith.  The email concerns the climate model data used in our recently-published International Journal of Climatology (IJoC) paper. Mr. Smith has requested that I provide him with these climate model datasets. This request has been made to Dr. Anna Palmisano at DOE Headquarters and to Dr. George Miller, the Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

I have spent the last two months of my scientific career dealing with multiple requests for these model datasets under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I have been able to do little or no productive research during this time. This is of deep concern to me.

From the beginning, my position on this matter has been clear and consistent. The primary climate model data used in our IJoC paper are part of the so-called "CMIP-3" (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) archive at LLNL, and are freely available to any scientific researcher. The primary observational (satellite and radiosonde) datasets used in
our IJoC paper are also freely available. The algorithms used for calculating "synthetic" Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) temperatures from climate model data (to facilitate comparison with actual satellite temperatures) have been documented in several peer-reviewed publications. The bottom line is that any interested scientist has all the scientific information necessary to replicate the calculations performed in our IJoC paper, and to check whether the conclusions reached in that paper were sound.

Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Stephen McIntyre (Mr. McIntyre is the initiator of the FOIA requests to the U.S. DOE and NOAA, and the operator of the "ClimateAudit.com" blog) is interested in full replication of our calculations, starting from the primary climate model and observational data. Instead, they are demanding the value-added quantities we have derived from the primary datasets (i.e., the synthetic MSU temperatures).

I would like a clear ruling from DOE lawyers - ideally from both the NNSA and DOE Office of Science branches - on the legality of such data requests. They are troubling, for a number of reasons.

1. In my considered opinion, a very dangerous precedent is set if any derived quantity that we have calculated from primary data is subject to FOIA requests⁴. At LLNL's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), we have devoted years of effort to the calculation of derived quantities from climate model output. These derived quantities include synthetic MSU temperatures, ocean heat
content changes, and so-called "cloud simulator" products suitable for comparison with actual satellite-based estimates of cloud type, altitude, and frequency. The intellectual investment in such calculations is substantial.

2. Mr. Smith asserts that "there is no valid intellectual property justification for withholding this data". I believe this argument is incorrect. The synthetic MSU temperatures used in our IJoC paper - and the other examples of derived datasets mentioned above - are integral components of both PCMDI's ongoing research, and of proposals we have submitted to funding agencies (DOE, NOAA, and NASA). Can any competitor simply request such datasets via the U.S. FOIA, before we have completed full scientific analysis of these datasets?

3. There is a real danger that such FOIA requests could (and are already) being used as a tool for harassing scientists rather than for valid scientific discovery. Mr. McIntyre's FOIA requests to DOE and NOAA are but the latest in a series of such requests. In the past, Mr. McIntyre has targeted scientists at Penn State University, the U.K. Climatic Research Unit, and the National Climatic Data Center in
Asheville. Now he is focusing his attention on me. The common denominator is that Mr. McIntyre's attention is directed towards studies claiming to show evidence of large-scale surface warming, and/or a prominent human "fingerprint" in that warming. These serial FOIA requests interfere with our ability to do our job.

Mr. Smith's email mentions the Royal Meteorological Society's data archiving policies (the Royal Meteorological Society are the publishers of the International Journal of Climatology). Recently, Prof. Glenn McGregor (the Chief Editor of the IJoC) provided Mr. McIntyre with the following clarification:

"In response to your question about data policy my position as Chief Editor is that the above paper has been subject to strict peer review, supporting information has been provided by the authors in good faith which is accessible online (attached FYI) and the original data from which temperature trends were calculated are freely available. It is not
the policy of the International Journal of Climatology to require that data sets used in analyses be made available as a condition of publication."

As many of you may know, I have decided to publicly release the synthetic MSU temperatures that were the subject of Mr. McIntyre's FOIA request (together with additional synthetic MSU temperatures which were not requested by Mr. McIntyre). These datasets have been through internal review and release procedures, and will be published shortly on PCMDI's website, together with a technical document which describes how synthetic MSU temperatures were calculated. I agreed to this publication process primarily because I want to spend the next few years of my career doing research. I have no desire to be "taken out" as scientist, and to be involved in years of litigation.

The public release of the MSU data used in our IJoC paper may or may not resolve these problems. If Mr. McIntyre's past performance is a guide to the future, further FOIA requests will follow. I would like to know that I have the full support of LLNL management and the U.S. Dept. of Energy
in dealing with these unwarranted and intrusive requests.

I do not intend to reply to Mr. Smith's email.

Sincerely,

Ben Santer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-3840
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
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Stephen Schneider is a professor at Stanford University, and one of the more prominent and visible scientists who are proponents of anthropogenic global warming (though he wasn't always so).  Most of his work is publicly funded.  Ben Santer is an equally prominent climate researcher and key contributor to the IPCC report, working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (100% public funding).

Footnotes:

1.  Schneider is arguing here that the scientists should be able to keep their code secret.  But the code is exactly where the methods used to distill the underlying data into the temperature series are detailed – so he is rather directly arguing that this key part of their research should remain secret.  In my opinion that is a priori anti-science.  What makes this even more egregious is that these methods were developed with public money, and they are therefore the public's property!

2.  Yes, Dr. Schneider – we harassers have the unmitigated gall to suggest that if the foundation of your work is suspect, then so is the rest of your work.  Sheesh!  This is not the kind of thing that someone seeking the truth would say, but it is most definitely the kind of thing someone with a vested interest in the status quo would say.

3.  Why not copy or forward this email, Dr. Schneider?  Are you ashamed of your attitude?  You dang well ought to be!

4.  This is a fascinating and revelatory statement for me.  Here Dr. Santer is making the case that the data in question is his (or his team's), and should not be publicly accessible.  What an interesting attitude for someone who works for me (and all the other taxpayers) to take! It's as if I went to my boss at work and said “You know all that code I wrote last year, that you paid me to write?  Well, it's mine, I tell you!  All mine!”  I'm pretty sure I know where that attitude would get me...

The Second Leg...

The second leg of the trip I just took was from Atlanta, Georgia to Richmond, Virgina – roughly the same distance as San Diego to San Francisco.  My expectation of such flights is that they are short and uneventful.

Not this one.

First, a little context.  My flight was on a Delta McDonnell-Douglas MD-88, a two-engine jet that seats over 150 passengers.  There was just one aisle, with three seats on the left and two on the right in the main cabin.  I was seated just two or three rows from the back, on the right hand side in the aisle seat. 

I was one of the first to board, and the entire area around me was clear as I sat down.  A short time after I sat down, a large, angry-looking black man with a shaved bald head came down the aisle toward me.  He glowered at everyone he passed, out the windows, at the empty seats, and at me.  As he approached me, he loudly proclaimed “Dat's mah seat!” in an accusing tone, redoubling the gloweryness of his glower, while pointing at the window seat beside me.

Ah, and I forgot to mention that he was holding a large paperback book in front of him, cover out, like a shield. The book was Black Theology and Black Power.

As I got up to let my new seatmate in, I began to suspect that my flight might not be as pleasant as I had anticipated...

The plane slowly filled as my seatmate settled in, opened his book, and started reading.  I breathed a silent “thank goodness!”, expecting that he'd be immersed in his book and would ignore me.  Sadly, this was not to be.  Just as I was starting to relax, my seatmate's head whipped around, his eyes bore into mine, and he shouted out “You mah oppressor!”  This was accompanied by a transformation of his face from a mask of ordinary anger into a one that was a caricature of white-hot anger.  Or maybe that's black-hot anger, though the metaphor doesn't work quite as well.  This strange behavior continued, intermittently and randomly, throughout the entire flight.

In between a couple of these anger breakouts, an Indian woman (complete with red dot on her forehead) sat in the seat immediately in front of me.  I noticed, after she sat down, a kind of shimmering in the air above her.  Quite pretty, actually, with the many cabin lights refracting through what looked like thermal effects of some kind.  Moments later, I knew the horrifying truth: I was downwind from a perfume bomb. Mercilessly and relentlessly the cabin ventilation system drove the radioactive perfume into my face.  I wanted to cry out “It burns! It burns!”  Tears ran down my face uncontrollably for the entire flight.  A sympathetic flight attendant gave me a box of tissues and a bowl to squeeze them dry into.  Miraculously the only long term effect I could detect after the flight is that my white knit shirt has turned permanently reddish.

After we took off and were about halfway through the flight, my seatmate decided to engage me in a debate about reparations for slavery.  More specifically, a debate about the exact amount of reparations that was appropriate (because, at least in his own mind, the question of whether they should be paid at all had already been settled).  The remarkable thing about this debate is that there was only one voice (his).  I refused to participate.  This didn't slow down my seatmate at all – he just imagined what my answer would be, and debated that.  The debate hadn't gone on long before it became clear that my seatmate had a specific number in mind: $2.65 million per black man, woman, and child in the U.S., adjusted according to the percentage of your ancestry that was black, and payable to anyone who was more than 1/16th black.  How he came up with precise numbers remains a mystery, as he simply declared them to be correct (that was his answer to every imaginary question I raised in the debate). 

Shortly after the debate ended, I noticed a rather large, mainly spherical white woman talking with an animated woman, obviously a friend, in the aisle.  The seated woman first caught my eye because she seemed to be made up from a collection of spheres: her head was round, her neck was round, her body was round...you get the idea.  There was a certain symmetry to her that was interesting.  She was seated across the aisle from me, one seat row in front of me, so I had a good view.

Seated right next to the round lady was a very thin black man.  He had a conservative haircut, wore a white shirt and tie, and looked to be about 35 years old.  It's possible he wasn't actually as thin as he appeared to be, but was rather simply crushed between the round lady and the guy in the window seat.

Anyway, the round lady was talking in an animated way with the woman in the aisle, who was slowly walking toward the restroom in the back.  The round lady had a glass of red wine in her left hand, and as she was talking and gesticulating with her friend, moving slowly backward...she spilled her glass of red wine right onto the head of the skinny black guy.  The whole glass.   Every drop. 

That poor guy went into shock.  He was spluttering and wiping his eyes, probably trying to figure out just what the hell had happened to him.  He had red wine streaming from all sides of his head, down onto his white shirt and tie.  Round lady, in a juvenile way, loudly proclaimed that the fault was his (the black guy), saying that he'd struck her arm – but several of us (including me) had seen the entire thing unfold and knew that simply wasn't so.  After a while, the black guy just looked resigned and laughed it off.  I heard a flight attendant later telling him that the airline would replace his shirt and tie (decent of them).

“You mah oppressor!” said my seatmate.  Several more times.

Richmond looked quite inviting as we approached the runway...

Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell Out of the Way!

With permission, I'm posting in its entirety an email I received from reader Larry E. (a Marine no longer on active duty):

There is always sadness when a serviceman loses their lives and there is also pride that they did so for something greater than themselves.

The real tragedy isn’t the loss of life in conflict, but it is when a nation turns their backs on them. When a nation sends their loved ones into harms way, then loses the will to complete the mission. Not because the capability was lacking, but because our servicemen and women are used as political pawns by our very own government. Each party constantly looking to seek advantage over the other rather than looking toward what is best for the country and best for those men and women that have sworn to serve it. A government filled with politicians willing to undermine the troops and their mission for personal gain, yet all the while professing publically their support for the troops. Filled with politicians willing to use military funding as a vehicle for personal gain, all the while decrying wasteful projects. Filled with those that would throw all these lives away if they thought it might personally benefit them and their political party.

For whatever reason we are already there, no matter which President put us there, THIS President has the current responsibility of deciding if this a fight we should be fighting; and if it is, he should then throw absolutely everything we have at winning it and at winning it decisively. If he decides it is not, or if he decides it cannot be won, then he has the responsibility to withdraw immediately. The absolute worst thing to do, is to do nothing; leaving an overstretched military in the field to be worn away and to let the enemy win simply by nibbling at the edges until we tire and leave.

Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!

Larry

p.s.

On a related note, my Son graduates from CH-53 Sea Stallion, Crew Chief School, November 19th. I’m incredibly proud of him and will attend that graduation as I did when he graduated from recruit training. As I did, he joined the Marines after high school. So now there is this bond as Father and Son, but there is also the bond from our band of brothers. He called me on November 10th bright and early to make certain that he was the first to wish me happy birthday; as all Marines exchange birthday greetings to celebrate their Corps founding. He has really grown up to be a fine young man. He will be deploying very soon to Afghanistan. When he does, he deserves a civilian leadership that will “Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!”

We wish Larry's son all the best.  I'm sure all my readers will join me with their hopes and prayers for his safe return...

Flight Blogging...

As I write this I am on a flight from San Diego to Atlanta.  The plane is equipped with in-flight WiFi, so here I am posting to my blog while in the air.  Amazing!

The performance isn't bad at all.

The in-flight entertainment system had some kind of a problem at first, so the flight attendant announced that they were going to “hard boot” the computer.  To my amusement, all our seat-back screens showed the boot progress – of the Ubuntu Linux OS that's installed on the computer.  Nice little penguin logo on the graphical boot screen.  Hah!

Blog Alert...

I am traveling this week, today (Saturday) through next Thursday.  I'm going to visit my folks in Virginia, then I'm off to Atlanta to visit with a customer.  Blogging in this period will be intermittent and not particularly predictable, either in timing or content.

Now I'm off to the airport, to place myself at the mercy of Delta...