CA reader Geoff Sherrington, an Australian scientist, sends the following email exchange with Phil Jones in early 2006 (original post here). Geoff observes:
there is a reluctance to answer direct questions with direct answers and a lot of red herrings thrown in. Readers can deduce what they like from the exchange, where Phil says he no longer has the data used in early papers. Contrast this with the statement next from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (Blair Trewin, April 2006 email to me):
From: Geoff Sherrington
Sent: Fri 3/24/2006 12:09 PM AUS
To: cru@uea.ac.uk
Subject: Early global temperature data
I seek the figures which were used from Australian weather stations at the start of your climate modelling work in the 1980s. I seek to know the first set of Australia weather stations used in modelling, plus the set that was rejected and if possible, the span of data by years (or the data itself) for each of the stations considered and eventually used initially.
Is it possible to obtain this information?
Regards
Geoffrey H Sherrington
Scientist
To: Geoff Sherrington
Cc: Sheppard Sylvia (SCI) ks918
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:20 AM UK
Subject: FW: Early global temperature data
Dear Geoffrey, We no longer have the Australian station date we were using in the early 1980s. At that time we had a limited network. In the 1990s, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology began issuing a lot more station data each month. Up to that time it had been about 40 stations internationally. Through contacts with personnel in Melbourne, we got access to the back data from all the new stations, so added these. In order to use temperature data, we need historic series with at least the 1961-90 base period. We now have access to over 100 stations from BoM in real time.
I wish more countries would release more data in real time like Australia. Some have, but not that many – and none release extra data in Africa, South America and southern Asia. We have managed to get extra historic data though in South Africa, Argentina and Brazil. We got the latter, though, on the agreement that we didn’t pass the data onto others, but we can use them in our gridded data. This condition also applies to a number of European countries – again only historic data, no real time. Australia is the only country to make additional data (additional to the about 1500 exchanged by Met Services) to us in real time.
I have looked back at a publication where we adjusted station records for homogeneity in the mid-1980s. We didn’t omit any Australian series then, but adjusted the following sites: Darwin, Townsville, Thursday Island, Gladstone, Forrest, Adelaide, Sydney and Norfolk Island. We still have these adjustments.
In the mid-1990s, we compared our Australian temperature with a series developed by Neville Nicholls (then of BMRC, he has retired in the last few months and now works at Monash) and a student he had. Over the period from 1901-1992 we had a correlation of our two series of 0.92 and with no difference in trend over these 92 years. This work was done before we got the additional station data (so in effect we had about 40 stations, whereas Neville and the student had almost 200). I can’t recall the student’s name (Simon ?).
So, I can’t send you anything. We don’t have the earlier station data now.
Regards
Phil
AUS 24/03/2006 23:31
Geoff Sherrington to Phil Jones
I was working on early Australian temperature records going back to the 1880s when the first global models were being constructed. I share the general concerns in this Internet quote, but not necessarily the figures: The central contention of these pages is that for over a decade the IPCC has published global temperature trends distorted by purely local warmth from Urban Heat Islands (UHI’s). These spurious trends have been promoted as “smoking gun” evidence of greenhouse warming. The data were generated by Dr. P.D. Jones and others (1986, 91 & 94), mainly from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia at Norwich in the UK. The CRU and the IPCC claim that our atmosphere has warmed by 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius since the late 19th Century, and ascribe most of this to an enhanced greenhouse effect.
For example, most of the early data from the 1880s to the 1950s were rejected because the weather stations were not housed in approved cases or were otherwise deemed unreliable. There were over 100 weather stations available, but in the first model(s) only about 10 were used from Australia, most in large cities.Today, there is a most unscientific trend to ignore the raw data and to apply statistical algorithms to improve the data. This has the danger of generating artefacts and I have no doubt that it does. In particular, heat island effects continue to cause problems and the maths i have read for their correction are highly suspect.
The early Australia data might not have come from approved weather station cases, but very many of the sites showed a slight temperature reduction from ca 1880 to 1950. The weather station cases would not have been the cause of this uniform decrease. These data are valuable, because, properly used, they extend back in time the trends that are apparent and potentially allow the resetting of a reference starting date for Australian surface temperatures around 1880 instead of 1980 or whatever is the current backwards limit for “acceptable data” now. We thought that the maximum and minimum surface temperatures for Australia had imperceptible to slight downwards change from 1880 to 1985 or so as recorded by the bulk of the stations, especially when sudden discontinuities were removed if they happened at different times at different locations or were documented as instrument changes.
In short, I feel that the early climate models used selective data to stampede the policy makers into belief in global warming, prematurely. What say you to that?
Geoff Sherrington
From: Phil Jones
To: Geoff Sherrington
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 8:57 PM
Subject: Re: Early global temperature data
Geoff,
First, I’m attaching a paper. This shows that it is necessary to adjust the marine data (SSTs) for the change from buckets to engine intakes. If models are forced by SSTs (which is one way climate models can be run) then they estimate land temperatures which are too cool if the original bucket temps are used. The estimated land temps are much closer to those measured if the adjusted SSTs are used. This doesn’t address in any way your questions, but I thought I’d send it to you.Back to Australia: there is a serious problem with Australian temperatures before the early 1900s because of the screens used. Unlike NZ, the various Australian states didn’t switch over to Stevenson screens very early and when the change occurred it was different in different states. The work undertaken by Neville Nicholls and the student sought to find the 200+ best stations across the country.
We’ve not rejected any Australian stations. The ones we use from BoM though start around the 1900 period. All of those we had in the early 1980s we still use. In Fig 2 of the other attachment, there is a time series for Australia. We have adjusted some, but these adjustments cancel. Since the paper in 2003, we’ve added in lots more Australian data, as I mentioned before. The trend of Australian temperatures though has not changed in its overall character. In the mid-1980s the extra data (above the 40 or so) were not available to us.
Climate models don’t use observational data. They are longer running versions of weather models. They don’t get given any observational data – except in the case of the SSTs in the first paper I’ve attached. As I said this is one way climate models can be run. Another way is to include the ocean, so they determine their own SSTs.
Regards
Phil
At 01:11 28/03/2006, Sherrington wrote:
Dear Phil, I continue to assert that there were well over 100 long-term surface weather site records from Australia available to the public in Australa because I have been in touch with a scientist who compiled some of it into a paper. The data frequently extend back to the 1880s.
In Jones et al 1986, I have quickly counted the actual Australian stations used and found 34 or so. Some of these start in the 1880s (especially those in Graph 2 below, where a steady temperature increase is shown on average) but about half or more, by eyeball, start about 1951. I have lived in several of these places before 1951, so they are not new towns.
Two graphs derived from this 1985-1990 period follow. They show the potential for wrong results through selectivity and the potential for artefacts from population use of energy near weather stations (heat islands). The absence of Stevenson screens cannot dismiss the Graph 1 cooling trend from 1882 to 1951. Of the 25 stations in graph 1, only Darwin was in Jones et al 1986. That means that 24 plausible data sets were excluded. (There were ore than that).
What a coincidence that all these averaged data show a slight increase from 1951 onwards, the same cutoff year as applied by Jones at al in many other cases. Surely there is a strong case for the start point for calculations of changes in climate to extend back to the 1880s and not suddenly commence in the 1950s.There is a whole mathematical branch of statistics named “Geoststistics” which is particularly suitable for discerning if an observation at one place has predictive value for another location. (e.g. for comparing nearby stations for heat island effects). Do you know if this method has been applied to climate modelling?
Regards Geoff Sherrington Scientist, MelbourneGRAPH 1
1413f51.jpg
Geraldton, Narrabri, Hay, Albany, Rottnest Island Lighthouse, Walgett,
Deniliquin, Bourke, Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, Coonabarabran,
Echuca, Cooma, Darwin, Moruya Heads Pilot Station, Omeo, Dubbo, Alice
Springs, Gabo Island Lighthouse, Bathurst, Strathalbyn, Mt. Gambier,
Yamba, Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse, Newcastle Signal Station, Cape
Otway Lighthouse.
GRAPH 2
1413f61.jpg
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart
From: Phil Jones
To: Geoff Sherrington
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: Early global temperature data
Geoff,
The Australian data were not available to us in the mid-1980s. Even if they were we were concentrating on getting data and back data for other parts of the world (particularly the tropics, Africa and South America, where we didn’t have anything). Just because data are available in a country doesn’t mean we have them. The Australian Weather Bureau now releases lots more data than it did. In the 1980s, it was releasing about 40 stations.As an aside, your expectation that we had the data isn’t unusual. We get requests from a number of scientists in countries (mainly developing ones or from the ex-USSR and eastern Europe) to send them their own national datasets. Their met services haven’t got their own national data digitised in many cases, although the situation is improving, but only slowly.
We searched the literature in the 1980s, but more importantly searched a number of data archives (proper archives such as libraries), particularly that at the UK Met Office to digitise additional data. We also managed to get some from national met agencies. We continue to do this and add in new datasets as and when we get the data. For example, Canada has a project to homogenize all their station and precipitation (daily and monthly) series. They sent us all the final adjusted series and we include them in our database – about 250 series. We got the data through scientific contacts at meetings in the late 1990s. All the adjusted data are not in the GHCN archive in Asheville, partly because they (Asheville) have never asked for them. If you ask for Canadian data now you get the adjusted data, but only from Environment Canada. NCDC (Asheville) and GISS still use the unadjusted Canadian data. We do the best we can, but we’re not some global archive. I guess NCDC is the official archive as recognized by WMO and GCOS, but they don’t have resources to fund anyone chasing countries for improved past data.
Back to the early Australian data: I mentioned the other day that there are problems with the early Australian data. If you look at the pdf I sent earlier (Figure 2, panel f) you’ll see that climate models given SSTs can’t reproduce Australian land temps (the black line) prior to around 1910. The models can in other continents of the world. Most importantly for Australia, they can over NZ. I would suggest you look at NZ temperatures. The attached paper sort of does this, but only as a part of other regions of the S. Pacific. There are earlier papers by Folland and/or Salinger on NZ temperatures. What is clear over this region is that the SSTs around islands (be they NZ or more of the atoll type) is that the air temps over decadal timescales should agree with SSTs. This agreement between SSTs and air temperatures also works for Britain and Ireland. Australia is larger, but most of the longer records are around the coasts.
So, NZ or Australian air temperatures before about 1910 can’t both be right. As the two are quite close, one must be wrong. As NZ used the Stevenson screens from their development about 1870, I would believe NZ. NZ temps agree well with the SSTs and circulation influences.
Finally, geostatistics is being used somewhat in climatology. It isn’t being used in climate modelling – which is using GCMs and RCMs. You seem to have a broader definition of climate modelling.
Regards
Phil
At 07:39 31/03/2006, Sherrington wrote:
Dear Phil,
You wrote
“Back to the early Australian data: I mentioned the other day that there are problems with the early Australian data. If you look at the pdf I sent earlier (Figure 2, panel f) you’ll see that climate models given SSTs can’t reproduce Australian land temps (the black line) prior to around 1910. The models can in other continents of the world. Most importantly for Australia, they can over NZ. etc.”
An important geographical difference between Australia and New Zealand is that Australia has a hot interior and New Zealand has a cold interior. If you consider weather stations near the coastline, the daily shapes of the weather logs (id examined say hour by hour) might well be different, so that an analysis of the maxima and minima might not reflect heat flux comparably in both countries. If the land and the nearby sea have different thermal inertias, this could well explain the differences you are reporting. But this is only a guess as I do not know your present detailed methodology. The same comment applies to all historical analyses based in maxima and minima, be they daily, monthly or yearly. They are merely indicators of flux and in the final analysis might all be inadequate for reconstructions.Seems to me that there is a need to devise contemporary experiments that look at the hourly patterns, in places that geostatistics has established a probability of connectivity and predictability.
Geoff Sherrington.
Phil Jones to Sherrington
Geoff,
I’ve found another paper you should look at. I can’t get the pdf as it has been back-scanned yet. It is a paper by Neville Nicholls et al. in the International Journal of Climatology, Vol 16, 705-710 (1996). This talks about the exposure of early Australian temperature data in the different states.One of the most interesting of the comparisons of the screens (old and new) was undertaken at Adelaide for over 60 years. Whether Adelaide has an urban effect is irrelevant to this. The two screens are the same site. There is a plot (Figure 1) of the difference. The figure caption isn’t very clear but the text is. The plot is for the difference between the Glaisher/Greenwich stands which were common in most of Australia up to the 1910s and the Stevenson screen. For minimum temperature the difference is relatively small and has little seasonal cycle (Stevenson warmer by about 0.1 deg C). For the maximum though there is a marked seasonal cycle, with the Stevenson screen cooler by about 1 deg C in summer months, reducing to about 0.2 cooler in winter months. I realise this is just Adelaide, but this is the longest set of paired readings anywhere in the world. It clearly indicates the old screens are too warm. Maybe other shorter comparisons were made in other areas.
There are similar problems in Spain before about 1900. Here they just switched to Stevenson type screens between 1900 and 1910 (varying between sites) with no overlap. However, there are pictures of the old stands (based on a French model) with dimensions/instructions etc. So what a group has done is to build two new ones and install them at the sites of two stations (La Corunna and Murcia – opposite sides of Spain to get a little idea of differences in the different climates). The results from 2 years of overlap show remarkable consistencies between the two years and some similarities between the sites. The maximums are much more affected – also about 1deg C warmer in the rebuilt’ old screens compared to the conventional ones. Minimum temperature differences are on the opposite sign and much smaller – very similar to Adelaide.
Finally, if you don’t think you can compare Australia with NZ, then compare Tasmania with NZ. Many Tasmania records are near to the coast and they should agree with SSTs around the island, when averaged to annual or decadal values.
I’ll be away next week at a meeting in Europe. I’ll likely have some email but little time, so will only be answering the more urgent emails. I’ll be back to the normal the week after.
Regards
Phil
Finally Geoff sends the following response from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (Blair Trewin, April 2006 email)
“At last count there were 74 stations which have at least some digital temperature data (mostly monthly) available in 1890 (GS comment – this must be a typo meaning 1980), plus a handful of stations which had opened and closed before then. The data from these stations should be publicly available (and I can’t see any reason why any data that was available in the mid 1980’s would not be now – in fact the reverse would be true). It is likely that a number of other stations (possibly about 100) took at least some pre-1890 temperatures, but most of these records were probably short and of doubtful quality.
I think Phil Jones may have digitised some monthly data himself for the 1986 data set – I know this is true for Alice Springs as we only digitised the 1879-1924 data from there in the last couple of years.”
Climate Audit 
27 Comments
A couple of quick comments. Jones says here:
You may recall that in his response to Willis’ FOI request, Jones said that all his data was at GHCN.
Another observation. Jones says:
We are spending billions of dollars on climate research and NCDC doesn’t have resources to chase data and Phli Jones says that they are not some “global archive”. They also refuse FOI requests. Here’s my suggestion: DOE funds Phil Jones. Why not take the money and fund NCDC to “chase” the data? Also how much funding does it take to send an email? Surely someone at GHCN could send an email to the Canadian meteorological service.
The amateurism of this is beyond belief.
This is laughable!!!
The climate models can’t reproduce the sample data, therefore the sample data is wrong?!?!?!
How do these people get PhDs and teaching positions at universities?
I wonder what due diligence they performed to determine whether their bucket adjustments in Australasian waters might be wrong.
In my experience, the data on the Environment Canada web page is exactly the same as the next day reports posted up by the Weather Network (yesterday’s high, low, average temps and precipitation). Unless the alleged adjustments are happening in realtime, I do not see data that has been adjusted by Environment Canada.
I also have a photocopy of a 1990 Environment Canada report on the “Toronto Climatological Station” which includes tables listing the daily highs and lows recorded since 1840. Where this data overlaps with the data in the GHCN it appears to be the same. Calculated monthly and annual means from this daily data also matches the GISS data.
So I am not sure Environment Canada is actually issuing adjusted data.
SteveM
Here is an interesting post regarding another potential source of measurement error. Jones seemed
concerned about the abscence of Stevenson type screens. I wonder if he has paid any attention
to changes in paint over the years. All white paint is not created equal.
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/05/rising_surface_temperatures_ba.html
So, with all the adjusting going on, or not as the case may be, how can anyone make any valid sense out of the data?
Michael points out that:
Are we really now in a world where models dictate what we see?
#5. It’s going to be rather difficult to repaint the Stevenson Screens with newly made whitewash as suggested by a poster when you consider the fact that many observational stations have not used any instrument shack, Stevenson screen or otherwise, for five to twenty years or longer in some observational networks like the NWS and AWN. Electronic sensor systems have been increasingly used in some observational networks for many years, which raises the question of whether or not any studies have measured for differences in the observational instrumentation methods? If not, how can the data be valid for measurements discriminating between tenths of a degree Celsius?
Jeff Norman:
“I am not sure Environment Canada is actually issuing adjusted data.”
You are using Toronto to make your comparison. Maybe Environment Canada likes the unadjusted Toronto data just fine. Toronto’s current population is what, 5 million? I doubt it was that big in 1840.
>>First, I’m attaching a paper. This shows that it is necessary to adjust the marine data (SSTs) for the change from buckets to engine intakes. If models are forced by SSTs (which is one way climate models can be run) then they estimate land temperatures which are too cool if the original bucket temps are used. The estimated land temps are much closer to those measured if the adjusted SSTs are used. This doesn’t address in any way your questions, but I thought I’d send it to you.>>
And what would have happened if the bucket adjustment had not done the trick? Would other corrections have been made to force the world to fit the model? I dislike the vulgar word ‘gobsmacked’, but I’m certainly gobsmacked about this. This isn’t science, it can’t be science. Given this latitude with the published data I could extend my oil sheen theory back to the days of the whaling fleets and prove that things started to go awry with the climate just when we started killing the great cetaceans in large numbers. My defence for fiddling with the data would be just the same: if I didn’t fiddle the numbers then my theory wouldn’t fit. Ye! Gods!
Data is data. Hadcru has had so much plastic surgery it’s beginning to look like Meg Ryan, but people still use it and try to fit their theories to this moving target. Choose some data first, then start making theories about it: until that happens all the climate change debate is, excuse me for this, nothing but hot air.
No UHI, no screen problems, no constant tinkering, ladies and gentlemen may I suggest the unbucketed SSTs? Global temperatures rise by 1.4 deg over a hundred years in very nearly a straight line, with a neat and unequivocal kreigesmarine signal starting in 1940. It was the latter which got me to doubt the latest Hadcru in the first place because it… err… well, it didn’t fit my theory….
(My only defence is that my theory uses unadjusted data, so my fiddling is restricted to not fiddling. I think this might stand up in court.)
JF
Unadjusted SST as input to a model doesn’t give correct land temperatures. So we adjust the SST.
Uandjusted land temperatures doesn’t fit simulated temperatures with adjusted SST as input. So we adjust the land temperatures.
Go figure.
Given Willis’ posting on the oter thread, white wash had greater IR transparency than modern paints, and would therefore induce higher daytime summer temperatures, exactly what Phil is claiming. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but let’s be objective. This one seems to be on the side of the warmers. Murray
11: Murray
According to this, its the modern paints that are transparent to IR. Whitewash appears to be more reflective in those wavelengths.
#11, 12
Willis made a mistake. I think he was reading nanometers instead of wavenumbers.
The sentences quoted by Jankowski in #2, and echoed in #6, are astonishing. They exhibit the antithesis of science. Back when I was doing physics research, we took experimental measurements and compared them to the hypotheis or model. If they did not match, we discarded or adjusted the hypothesis or model, not the measurements!
Based on Jones’ statements, I conclude that his entire “adjusted” database is suspect, every paper he’s written using that database is suspect, and every other paper or government report using his database is suspect. Considering the importance climate science attaches to his work, this is an appalling situation.
My forecast is that 2007 will be declared the hottest year on record by the AGW establishment. GISS has released their April anomaly (+.063 C), which puts the 4-month average at +0.69 C, well above their previous “record year” 2005 (+0.62 C). HADCRU is also reporting quite high anomalies so far, as noted in an earlier comment of mine.
Dr. Phil Jones had already warned us in late 2006, even though the rationale for his early forecast (El Nià±o conditions) has vanished, so let’s be prepared. By the end of this year we may well have to suffer extreme media hype.
Only that this time I will not believe it. And this at least for 2 reasons:
1) Unlike the 2 previous record years, 1998 and 2005 (according to HADCRU and GISS, respectively), this time the satellite records are totally at odds with the surface ones. Both MSU and the traditionally “warmer” RSS are reporting very modest anomalies so far this year, to say the least. This, by the way, is also inconsistent with AGW theory: more warming aloft.
2) I’m getting tired of seeing constant revisions of all sort of records that invariably go in the sense of accommodating the AGW hypothesis: the MSU revisions, the HADCRUT last revision, the amazing revision that has literally distorted their own graphics in front of our very eyes… (BTW, I reckon they will also finally get the YES they were obviously seeking to the question at the top of their website “Will there be a record low Arctic sea ice minimum this summer?”). As Lindzen would argue, once you remove measurement errors selectively you can no longer expect that the errors that unavoidably still remain will cancel each other out.
In my humble opinion, the efforts initiated by Steve and Willis to expose Phil Jones’ handling of the HADCRUT record are of the greatest importance. And I’m nothing but an observer but it seems to me that unveiling Jones’ manoeuvres should be a much easier task than that already achieved with the Hockey Stick. Even some level-headed warmers have admitted in this very blog that they find Jones’ position untenable from a scientific point of view.
In my second point above there’s a “cryosphere today” website missing. Sorry, no idea how it vanished…
RE: #15 – For there to be record low sea ice extent at the annual minimum, in August or September, things will have to pick up in pace a bit. At present, there has been almost no recession of the ice edge in the Western Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere, there is a mere hole in the Bering Sea and the normal early melt of the Sea of Okhotsk:
Interestingly, Asian snow coverage is pretty good for mid May. Reminds me of the time I was in Asahikawa at this time of year and it started snowing – good thing I had my warm coat with me.
Steve and Geoff,
In Phil Jones reply to Geoff of March 25, 2006, he says in his 3rd paragraph, “I have looked back at a publication where we adjusted station records for homogeneity in the mid-1980s. We didn’t omit any Australian series then,..”.
To say “We didn’t omit any Australian series then..” seems to me utterly disconnected with the facts as expressed in the Jones et al 1986 documentation;
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, (1986c) TR027 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Southern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098
There were ~80 odd Australian stations considered in the above compilation and only about 40 used.
I can not imagine what Phil Jones means by saying, “We didn’t omit any Australian series then..”. Is there some other mid 1980’s study of Australia he could be referring to ?
In his 1994 global update, Jones PD, (1994) Hemispheric surface air temperature variations: a reanalysis and an update to 1993. J Clim 7:1794-1802 he expanded his Australian network to include many of these long term small town or rural records showing warmth in the late 19C. There is a small time series showing this, bottom right, page 1800.
Click to access i1520-0442-7-11-1794.pdf
I have kidded myself that PDJ was infuenced by my 1991 work.
For any who have missed it, see my post #29 at the earlier page,
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1492
Ginormous self-licking ice-cream cone.
Mark
Although old, I raised the Australian temp data again because it forms a fair part of the Sth Hemi record. When one uses data from small Australian towns to probably eliminate UHI effects, it is still a bit disturbing. The overall trend 1880-1990 is commonly level with the start of an upward rise latterly. A few of the graphs show a downward trend, although not in the pattern that been the subject of a lot of debate in other parts of the world, on this bulletin board. The Australian data seem atypical of SH and World data. If so, then why? Is the warming not fully global?
One of the more significant topics posted on Steve’s site is the temp variation with times away from max and min dailys. The constancy of before-dawn temperatures, the effect of elevation above ground of weather stations and different wind patterns close to ground at night – these are the nucleii for some real progress. It is so simple to set up low-cost, uncomplicated experiments to test this in the short term that it is bad science not to. First learn the alphabet, then use the language.
I have already posted that max and min temp is a poor proxy for heat flux, which is more fundamental.
I take the attitude that some temprature variation of a few degrees is expected in a natural system as complex as the globe. I don’t care if the trend is down or up over 100 years. What I do object to is this: An upward trend has been given a label, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and it has been called bad, the start of a Meltdown. If the Globe had showed a cooling trend, some cause would be invented (as it was, for a few years) and it would be called bad, the start of a new Ice Age. The only thing that is inarguably bad is the pseudo-scientific interpretation and the lack of need for it. Also, I hate the theft of innocence from brainwashed children.
Thanks Al. I still read your book when I want a fit of laughter. No need to see the movie. History will remember you, but as a gullible fool and opportunist.
If Jones no longer has the data, how can he go back to his paper to determine that no Australia data was left out?
That’s a super-power granted to team members. They’ve probably gotten their hands on some of Dr. Flimflam’s Miracle Cure that has nifty properties.
Mark
MarkW,
If you read my 18 you will see that Jones et al 1986 seminal hemispheric compilations which gave us IPCC AGW were documented in two DoE books, see my webpage http://www.warwickhughes.com/cru86/
First MarkW you see the two Jones 1986 peer reviewed papers,
Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851-1984
P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, P.M. Kelly, and T.M.L. Wigley, R.S. Bradley and H.F. Diaz;
Journal of Applied Meteorology: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 161-179.
and
Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851’€”1984
P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, and T.M.L. Wigley;
Journal of Applied Meteorology: Vol. 25, No. 9, pp. 1213’€”1230.
Then there is the much more voluminious supporting documentation (~350 page books) published by Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy, needs to be studied to gain a better understanding of the Jones et al process.
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, Santer B, Kelly PM, Bradley RS, Diaz HF, (1985) TR022 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Northern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098
and
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, (1986c) TR027 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Southern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098
Interested readers should ask for copies of TR022 and TR027 from cdiac@ornl.gov do not be put off by CDIAC saying the books are out of print, ask them to have the 1991 edition reprinted, this combined the two volumes. The DoE birthed these projects onto the world, they must still offer the documentation for what was done.
I intend scanning some Australian pages as time allows.
So MarkW, there is no need for Phil Jones to find any Australian data, he can simply read his own 1986 TR027 book.
There you find Appendix A lists: Station History Information and Homogeneity Assessment Details. That list had about 85 Australian stations.
Then Appendix B lists: Stations used in the gridding algorithm. This list has about 40 Australian stations.
So clearly, in between Jones et al “Homogeneity Assessment” process and their “gridding” process Jones et al 1986 have omitted about 45 Australian stations / series.
I think Phil Jones inadvertently mislead Geoff Sherrington in that March 25 email last year.
Warwick Hughes
I don’t think I was misled. I knew the count. (I used to have a boss nicknamed ‘The Count with the Silent “O”‘).
Re: #20
Books that strike a chord can have a great influence regardless of their accuracy. A classic example is Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’. There are still radical green NGO’s trying to prevent the use of DDT to reduce the spread of malaria, primarily because of the misinformation in that book. There is still a significant chance that Gore will be a candidate for US President in 2008 and a non-zero probability that he could win. Roger Pielke, Jr.for one, has predicted that this will, in fact, happen.
Steve, Geoff, Reply below from Phil Jones to an email of mine.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Warwick,
Here is a quick reply, which you can send on to Climate Audit
if you wish. I have just checked TR027 and a quick count indicated
that we had 83 stations in that 1986 report. 44 were used. The reason
the other 39 were not used has nothing to do with homogeneity.
They were not used because they didn’t have sufficient data for
the base period we were then using (1951-80). Some had just
some data for a few years in the 19th century, while some had
data only for the 1950s or the 1960s (i.e. not enough
years for the then 1951-80 base period).
So the original email (in 2006) wasn’t misleading, just lacking in some of
the detail as to why 39 station series were not used.
We are now getting data directly from Australia – this means more
complete series from many more locations. This has been arranged
through David Jones. So, what we have now should agree with Australian
national averages produced by BoM, at least back to about 1910.
Also, what we had in 1986 is somewhat irrelevant.
I have just checked but IJoC still hasn’t back-scanned the Nicholls
et al paper from 1996. I am attaching a more recent paper
(by Chris Folland), which would seem highly relevant to you discussions.
Cheers
Phil
PS
I note that some of the responders were questioning the Canadian data
we use. This can be accessed here. I am told it is also on a Canadian
site, but I can’t seem to locate that. The Canadians also make available
their raw measurements, and it would seem that unless one was aware
of Lucie Vincent’s work, there is no way anyone would know it had been
undertaken.
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/CANADA-CGDI_Canada_EC_HistCdnClimateData.html
PPS
Another minor point. It is important in all work related to temperature
(and to other variables) that the long series are homogeneous. Most data
in most countries are not homogeneous, because exposures have changed,
observations times have changed, the methods of calculating monthly
mean temperatures have changed and sites have been moved. We have
tried over the years to adjust data for all these problems.
At 18:50 11/05/2007, you wrote:
>Dear Phil,
>There is a thread running at the ClimateAudit blog;
>Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 5:44 am
>More Phil Jones Correspondence
>http://www.climateaudit.org/\?p=1545#comments
>with the text of some 2006 emails between yourself and Geoff Sherrington.
>It looks to me that you have not replied
>correctly to him where you said on 25 March 06,
>talking about the mid-1980’s, “We didn’??t omit any Australian series then..”.
>You should remember that the DoE TR027 paper has,
>Appendix A: Station History Information and
>Homogeneity Assessment Details. That list had about 85 Australian stations.
>Appendix B: Stations used in the gridding
>algorithm. This list has about 40 Australian stations.
>So clearly, in between your “Homogeneity
>Assessment” process and your “gridding” process
>you and your team have omitted about 45
>Australian stations / series in your 1986 Jones et al hemispheric compilation.
>No big deal.
>A quick clarification from you might be a good idea.
>As time permits me I intend to scan pages from
>that DoE documentation and post them on my webpages.
>Best wishes,
>Warwick Hughes
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
A backstory on homogenization of Australian data.