The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently drafted a third assessment report (TAR-2000) intending it for circulation to experts for review.

This forum is open to expert and non-expert alike to submit comments. Comments should be addressed to daly@microtech.com.au with `TAR-2000 Review' in the subject line.

There are also related two other ongoing reviews and debates where issues may overlap with those discussed here - Surface v. Satellites? and Solar-Climate Interactions    - John L. Daly

Subject: On responding
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 08:11:03 -0500
From: Mike MacCracken <mmaccrac@usgcrp.gov>
To: daly@vision.net.au

< side remarks omitted >

On all this Alaska warming discussion, my checking with the leading climate change scientist in Alaska on the issues being discussed has provided assurance that the river site is not contaminated by warm water release from Fairbanks. Indeed, there are lots of signs of recent rapid warming in Alaska (to higher temperatures than in earlier decades), including widespread melting of permafrost, etc. Even if you believe that development could be affecting local records over the past decade or two, the natural environment is showing quite significant change. The sea ice melting, for example, can be interpreted in the context of recollections and stories of Native peoples, who all are struck by the significant meltback because of the impacts on their subsistence hunting, etc. This part of the world is clearly warming.

Michael C. MacCracken, Ph.D.
National Assessment Coordination Office
Suite 750 400 Virginia Avenue
Washington DC 20024

Tel: (202) 314-2230 (Main number for NACO and for Robert Cherry, Admin. Asst.)
Tel: (202) 314-2233 (office and voicemail)
Fax: (202) 488-8681 or (202) 488-8678
E-mail: mmaccracken@usgcrp.gov
USGCRP Home Page: http://www.nacc.usgcrp.gov/

To M M,

Thanks for your 'intervention' and return, Mike. Humility and admission of personal ignorance are virtues even today.... I too spend too much time on this, but enjoy it and hope to use this email collection one day...If somebody could send me a doctoral student to analyse the construction and deconstruction of the climate threat 1970-2000,in its geo-political-economic context, I would be most grateful! Here spring has come one months early, even I can notice this. Daffodils in February, and crocus in January...not everywhere, of course. Nobody is complaining.

Dr. Sonja.A.Boehmer-Christiansen
Reader, Department of Geography
University of Hull,
Hull, HU5 6RX,
UK Editor, Energy&Environment, Multi-Science
sonja.b-c@geo.hull.ac.uk
00 44 (0)1482 465349/6341/5384
Fax: 01482 466340

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 15:57:29 -0700
From: Chick Keller <cfk@lanl.gov>
To: John Daly <daly@vision.net.au>, Mike MacCracken <mmaccrac@usgcrp.gov>

Dear John,

It's Cricket is it then? I might observe that many of us on both sides suggest that what the other side is saying "isn't cricket"....

More seriously, just two points for now.            <Refers to John Daly's comments on models here>

1. Your analogy limps, but is useful, excepting that from my experience, the analogy could be amended to have ball be the climate model in the hands of the experienced modeler who makes use of his/her physical/dynamical intuition to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the model and "throws" it accordingly. Modelers don't usually just use models as black boxes. They are well aware of limitations, approximations, etc. It's just that they use untraditional ways of telling accuracy.

2. I have a further comment on why Antarctica might not be the best place to look for the effects of greenhouse forcing. I already discussed why during the long austral night other forcings might dominate GH forcing: such as nighttime drainage from the continental interior to the coasts under the influence of strong Coriolic force with resultant massive atmospheric subsidence cooling the lower atmosphere. You countered with a temperature graph of summer time temperatures which are also not increasing. Upon reflection I recalled that this is precisely the time of the ozone hole which is still pretty big in December is significantly low for a few months more. Our research is pointing to global stratospheric ozone depletion as a major source of stratospheric cooling which seems to be influencing tropospheric temperatures. Might not this far more drastic ozone reduction (compared with the global reduction due to Pinatubo) affect summer Antarctic temperatures?

Charles. "Chick" F. Keller,
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics/University of California
Mail Stop MS C-305 Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545
cfk@lanl.gov
Phone: (505) 667-0920
FAX: (505) 665-3107
http://www.igpp.lanl.gov/climate.html

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 17:55:58 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
To: Chick Keller <cfk@lanl.gov>

Some general comments:

First, the Antarctic receives less warm thermohaline flow now due to decreased resistance through the Atlantic path as increased wind forcing in the Arctic and less resistance to return flow (due to less sea ice) drags more water north. This is beyond decreased Ozone.

Second, just because there has been an "observed" limit on SST of 305K is no reason to impose this limit on the models. In fact, this would be biasing. If the models do not accurately reflect the "305K maximum" under current conditions, the models, through their interpretation of the Law of Physics, are wrong. If the models are correct, they will reflect actual conditions. There is no "intellectual burden of determining which variable is dominant over which". As temperatures, cloud cover, water vapor, etc. change the model needs to accurately reflect relative dominance, and (correct me if I'm wrong Chick) this is the direction models are going. Our observation of matter is analog, but matter is actually discrete. Computational power must reach small enough pseudo-discrete packets to accurately reflect reality.

Additionally, there is more and more evidence Earth was cooling before the industrial revolution, and this cooling may have assisted with our training in the use of fire. Therefore, it appears the start condition a few hundred years ago should be in a cooling, rather than an equilibrium, condition.

Steve

Subject: Ozone and Antarctic Temperature
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:32:55 +1100
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@vision.net.au
To: Chick Keller <cfk@lanl.gov>

Dear Chick

you wrote:

I have a further comment on why Antarctica might not be the best place to look for the effects of greenhouse forcing. I already discussed why during the long austral night other forcings might dominate GH forcing: such as nighttime drainage from the continental interior to the coasts under the influence of strong Coriolic force with resultant massive atmospheric subsidence cooling the lower atmosphere. You countered with a temperature graph of summer time (December) temperatures which are also not increasing. Upon reflection I recalled that this is precisely the time of the ozone hole which is still pretty big in December is significantly low for a few months more.

My understanding of the ozone issue in the Antarctic is that the ozone loss begins in September, bottoms out in October, and returns by November when the winter polar vortex breaks down, allowing outside air into the Antarctic atmosphere. By December, ozone should be normal. But assuming you are right about ozone loss extending into December, I also attach temperatures at the South Pole for January and February, again with no warming trend evident. Is there recent data to suggest a significant loss of ozone over the Antarctica outside the spring months?

Our research is pointing to global stratospheric ozone depletion as a major source of stratospheric cooling which seems to be influencing tropospheric temperatures. Might not this far more drastic ozone reduction (compared with the global reduction due to Pinatubo) affect summer Antarctic temperatures?

Here's where the ozone question may not even be relevant to Antarctic temperatures. Ozone has a narrow absorption band at 9.5 microns (wave number 1,100 cm-1). According to the Dominant Wavelength Rule, this band would exert greatest leverage on IR from very warm places, typically 32°C (definitely tropical), not at the deep freeze sub-zero temperatures common at the poles.

To demonstrate this, I attach a diagram for IR radiation at Guam, which clearly shows the `bites' taken out of global IR by CO2 and ozone (at wave number 1,100 or 9.5 microns).

Compare this with a similar set of diagrams (also attached) for the Antarctic, where the effect of the dominant wavelength rule is for most radiation to be at long wavelengths, with only a slight tailback to the ozone wavelengths. Indeed, while the CO2 `bite' is still visible in these Antarctic radiation charts, the tailback radiation at 9.5 microns (the ozone region) is so small as to be insignificant. Indeed, the ozone `bite' is not even visible.

In other words, ozone is having no leverage at all over Antarctic IR, and thus its abundance, or absence, can have no effect at all on surface temperature. CO2 on the other hand does still have a visible `bite' and should have resulted in a rise in temperature by now. That it has not done so, even in summer, must raise questions about just how absorptive CO2 really is, or how saturated it is. This goes back to Heinz Hug's experiment where he found the absorptivity of CO2 to be much less than previously assumed. If so, it would explain a lot.

Regards

John Daly

p.s. your remarks about cricket well taken :-)
A very popular sport here in Australia - goodness knows why. After all, it's a game for gentlemen.

--
John L. Daly
"Still Waiting For Greenhouse"
http://www.john-daly.com

Subject: Surface v. Satellites
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 02:49:29 -0000
From: Andrew Woodcock <gilly@woodyone.fsnet.co.uk>
To: <daly@vision.net.au>

I read with interest Ken Parish's letter on the 'surface v. satellite' debate. The point that I noticed most was his observation that the surface and satellite data agree up to 1989, after which the surface data begins to show a warming trend.

In the U.K. and Western Europe 1989 is also an important year in recent climate trends.

Up to that year temperatures showed no obvious trend, indeed the 1980s were noticeable for frequent cold winters and a long run of poor summers. Talk of global warming in this part of the world was a joke!. However since 1989 all that has changed, with the 1990s bringing a succession mild stormy winters and unusually warm and dry summers. In the U.K. only 2 of the last 12 winters have been cold while 7 could be classed as very mild. The years of 1990, 1995 and 1999 have all been the warmest of the past 300 years (since the little ice age).

While I do not believe that this has anything to do with man made global warming, is it possible that this local natural warming is somehow being over represented in the surface temperature record?. Hundreds of weather stations exit in this over populated part of the world and while I understand that the Earth is divided into equal sized grids when calculating global temperatures, I think what the surface record is showing is the sudden rise in European temperatures since 1989. The reason for this sudden temperature increase has been the source of much debate, but it seems high North Atlantic sea surface temperatures and the resulting enhanced North Atlantic Westerlies are to blame. The IPCC have stated that the Medieval warm period was a European and North Atlantic phenomenon only. I think if they look closely they will find that any current warming is equally localised.

Andrew Woodcock.

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 10:34:07 GMT
From: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk (COURTNEY)
To: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>

Dear Steve:

I am writing to state my strong support for some of your "general comments". I think it important that I should do this because you and I have recently demonstrated disagreements. I believe points of agreement have as much worth as those of dispute.

You say; "If the models are correct, they will reflect actual conditions." Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. You illustrate this with reference to the "305 K maximum", and I agree this illustration. Indeed, I go further. The ability (or inability) of the existing models to generate the "305 K maximum" affords a simple validation test for the models. And this test investigates the models' validity for emulating climate behaviour in equatorial regions.

I also agree with you when you say; "Computational power must reach small enough pseudo-discrete packets to accurately reflect reality." The point at issue is whether the models have sufficiently small spatial and temporal resolutions for the models to provide results that approximate reality. In my opinion, the digital or analogue nature of the models does not affect this point. People who think there is an essential difference between analogue and digital procedures should remember that Newton devised his "theory of fluctions" (i.e. integral calculus) by defining that every continuous change consists of an infinite number of successive, infinitely small changes.

Importantly, another simple validation test is afforded by operating models with several different spatial and temporal resolutions. This test would indicate if the models do have sufficiently small spatial and temporal resolutions. It would also imply the minimum spatial and temporal operations of the climate system. And it would suggest if the needed resolutions vary between geographical regions. If such variation exists, then it may be possible to use less resolution in some places than others with resulting minimisation of required computing time.

Your suggestion concerning reduced thermohaline flow to the Arctic may be correct. But, it is important to note that the models predict the Arctic should have warmed during the last 50 years when much evidence indicates that in reality the Arctic cooled. This is a validation test for the models. As you say; "If the models are correct, they will reflect actual conditions", and I therefore think it important that - in the case of Arctic temperatures - we know they don't.

If the models were correctly emulating Arctic temperatures, then it would be reasonable to use them to test your suggestion of reduced thermohaline flow (and other hypotheses for the observed Arctic cooling). The models predict that the Arctic should have warmed more than anywhere else in the world during the last 50 years. So, the models predict the opposite of reality in the geographical region that the models say should have experienced most warming. This demonstrates that the models are wrong, at least for the Arctic region. A model that is known to be wrong cannot be used to test hypotheses. And it cannot be used to make useful predictions (nor projections).

This limitation of the models is also a demonstration of their great value. It is always important to know when significant information is missing and where it may be found. The models incorporate our best understanding(s) of the climate system, and their failure to emulate Arctic temperatures suggests areas requiring more study before we can claim to understand the climate system and its behaviour(s).

Finally, I agree with you that there was not a stable, equilibrium climate system a few hundred years ago. It puzzles me how anyone could think there was.

All the best      Richard

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 06:25:28 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
To: COURTNEY <richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk>

Dear Richard,

I agree with most of what you said, but I can not agree the Arctic is cooling. On the contrary it appears to be warming strongly. If you go to this site there is much evidence backing that statement up: http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/NASA/SOTC/sea_ice.html

The site also explains why the western Arctic is cooling for the moment, and why Antarctica is cooling as well. It explains some of the actual regional changes that cause these anomalies.

Steve

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:52:52 +0000 (GMT)
From: "S.A.Boehmer-Christiansen" <S.A.Boehmer-Christiansen@geo.hull.ac.uk>
To: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>, kirill.kondratyev@nierc.spb.ru

Kondratyev et all published observation data to show that the Arctic is cooling in E&E, vol.5, no.5, 1999.(SAT,lake, dentroclimatic and bioproductivity data) Perhaps he himself could respond...We have already heard that the low temperatures may have been false in order to get more fuel.....What does the Russian Academy of Sciences have to say?

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:38:46 GMT
From: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk (COURTNEY)
To: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>

Dear Steve:

At last we seem to be agreeing the areas where we concur and where we differ. I hope that pleases you as much as it pleases me.

I think we agree that the temperature behaviour of the Arctic is especially important because the GCMs predict that this area will exhibit most warming as atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations increase. Am I right in thinking we agree this ?

We do not agree about the recent historic trend in Arctic temperatures. You say that the Arctic "appears to be warming strongly" but I have cited two significant pieces of evidence in peer-reviewed publications that show it has been cooling during the last 50 years. If we do agree the importance of Arctic temperature trends, then it is important to reconcile this difference between our interpretations of the evidence.

My understanding is as follows.

You cite changes in sea ice cover (ref. http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/NASA/SOTC/sea_ice.html) as evidence for Arctic warming. I claim that this is not evidence for temperature change where the ice cover has not changed. Also, in regions where the ice cover has varied the change may be indicating changes to sea surface temperature but this is not certain because, alternatively, it may be indicating changes in ocean salinity at those places. Hence, I place little importance on changes to sea ice cover as indication of Arctic temperature change.

I place especial importance to the findings of Kahl et al. because theirs is by far the most comprehensive assessment of Arctic temperature measurements that exists. I remind that their paper, titled "Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years" (ref. Nature 361, 335-337 (1993) ) concludes; "Most of the [temperature] trends [over the Arctic Basin] are not statistically significant. In particular, we do not observe the large surface warming trends predicted by models; indeed, we detect significant cooling trends over the western Arctic Ocean during winter and autumn." And I add that Kahl et al. deduced from this that; "present climate models do not adequately incorporate the physical processes that affect the polar regions." I agree with this deduction.

What is wrong with the findings of Kahl et al. ? If nothing, then why disbelieve that Arctic temperatures have cooled in the past 50 years ?

Additionally, Franz Gerl has claimed that the paper by Kahl et al. does not say what it clearly does, and I ask you and all others considering this subject to read it for themselves.

I always prefer direct measurements and this is why I place such importance on the findings of Kahl et al.. Your citing the evidence of changes to sea ice cover implies that you prefer proxy measurements. OK. If that is your preference, then I remind that Nature has asserted a recent paper by Huang et al. (ref. Nature 403, 756-758 (2000) ) demonstrates that anthropogenic greenhouse warming is occuring. The paper reports geothermally derived temperature trends and it includes data in its Figure 4 lower frame (reproduced from a paper by Overpeck et al. Science 278, 1251-1256 (1997) ) that shows the Arctic has cooled by about 0.5 K during the most recent 50 years.

If this geothermally derived "evidence" for anthropogenic greenhouse warming includes a determination of significant Arctic cooling, then why would there be a dispute that Arctic temperatures have cooled from anyone who supports the hypothesis of the anthropogenic warming ?

So, direct measurement and proxy measurement both indicate Arctic cooling in recent decades. Additionally, measurements at several Arctic weather stations (including the polar station) also indicate Arctic cooling. In the face of this, and in the absence of criticism of the findings by Kahl et al., I accept that there has been Arctic cooling. And I agree with Kahl et al. in their conclusion (quoted above) of the implications of this for the climate models.

I hope the above is a clear statement of the remaining disagreement between us and my interpretation of the matter. Perhaps you would be willing to provide similar summary of your interpretation so others can judge our views without the need for us to continue dialogue? I think this would be helpful to all concerned and it would give you the "last word".

All the best      Richard

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 09:33:34 +1300
From: "VINCENT GRAY" <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>
To: "Steve Hemphill" <steve@hemphill.net>, "COURTNEY" <richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk>

Steve, Richard and Co

Sorry to but in, but the actual surface temperature record shows that most of the Arctic is warming. Fig 2.10d in the Draft TAR (quoted in my paper http://www.john-daly.com/graytemp/surftemp.htm ) gives trends (in °C/decade) in annual temperature for 5°x5° grids, and Fig 2.11 gives the trends for each season. The highest annual rises were in Northern Siberia and Northern Europe. Greenland and Alaska cooled. However, the Antarctic cosistently cooled.

These maps show a wide variability in measured surface temperature change, in stark contrast to the predictions of models. The MSU record shows cooling over N. Canada and constant temperature elsewhere in the Arctic.

This is only the last twenty years. The main "natural" influences are sun, volcanoes, El Niño, the main human influences, improvements in local comfort. Until the models can incorporate these factors and forget the greenhouse they will continue to lack predictive power.

Vincent Gray
75 Silverstream Road
Crofton Downs
Wellington 6004
New Zealand

Phone/Fax 064 4 4795939
Email vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:52:56 -0700
From: Chick Keller <cfk@lanl.gov>
To: "VINCENT GRAY" <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>

Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much!

While the models still have significant problems, they are far from useless. The newest ones are even getting the seasonal variations in sea ice and snow cover pretty much as observed.

This discussion sounds much like the one I read about with Creationists whose rhetoric says that because evolution scientitists can't explain all the conundrums, that therefore evolution hasn't happened. Regardless, I'm enjoying the interchanges since I'm learning a lot that needs to be considered.

Thanks to you all,

Charles. "Chick" F. Keller

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:47:42 -0500
From: "Onar Aam" <onar@netpower.no>
To: "Chick Keller" <cfk@lanl.gov>, "VINCENT GRAY" <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>

While the models still have significant problems, they are far from useless. The newest ones are even getting the seasonal variations in sea ice and snow cover pretty much as observed.

Depends on what you mean by useless. Useless as a scientific tool for improving our understanding of climate? On the contrary! Coupled with an extensive and accurate climatology models will surely help improve our understanding dramatically. Useless as a tool for predicting climate change 100 years into future? That's probably a statement with more truth to it.

As long as the British company Weather Action (www.weatheraction.com) keeps correctly predicting Atlantic hurricanes many months in advance based on solar data I cannot take the climate models that do not incorporate solar effects seriously.

This discussion sounds much like the one I read about with Creationists whose rhetoric says that because evolution scientitists can't explain all the conundrums, that therefore evolution hasn't happened.

That's a bit too harsh. Surely you are not implying that the case for anthropogenic climate change is as well-founded as evolution!? At the moment I would say that there is a stronger case for a strong solar influence on climate than for a strong anthropogenic influence. The prediction record of Weather Action is so good (highly statistically significant) that it is starting to become impossible to ignore it. A more correct analogy would in my opinion be the epicycle theory vs elliptical orbit theory. Yes, the epicycle theory was to some extent predictive, but since it wasn't based on the correct assumptions it was ultimately untrustworthy. Current climate models do not take secondary solar effects into account and this ultimately means that they must fail as predictive tools.

Regardless, I'm enjoying the interchanges since I'm learning a lot that needs to be considered.

I've learned a lot too, and even though I'm still highly skeptical of the GCMs' predictive ability I greatly value the input I have acquired from this discussion.

Onar.

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:01:04 +1300
From: "VINCENT GRAY" <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>
To: "Chick Keller" <cfk@lanl.gov>

Sorry folks. my last message was a little garbled.

I went back to the MSU website and found that the MSU map in the NRC Report, which gives mid-tropospheric temperature trends (°C/decade) from 1979-1998 is dominated by the effects of the 1998 El Niño. It shows three large regions ( N. Canada, N Atlantic and mid to east Siberia) which had a temperature rise over the period of up to 1°C. (I mistook the one over Alaska as a fall; it was a rise)

Identification of these regions on the MSU map shows that these increases were confined to the period 1997-1998, and that they have now disappeared. A map for 1979-2000 would show no such regional increases. There has been no temperature rise detectable by the MSU uniits sincee 1979 for the Arctic, or for Siberia

On the other hand, there has been a detectable cooling in that region of the Antarctic beneath Australia.

All the effects you have been discussing must be local, unaffecting the view from the mid troposphere.

< side remarks omitted >

Vincent Gray

Subject: Discrete Increments in Global Warming.
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 20:40:53 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
To: COURTNEY <richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk>

Dear Richard:

It does please me. I think that to facilitate this discussion we need to agree on and resolve differences in discrete increments.

So, let me make some statements and see if you agree or disagree.

1. Friction from the prevailing CCW rotation of the atmosphere around the North Pole causes a similar CCW rotation in the Arctic Ocean, if not covered by sea ice.

2. The tangential approach of the Norwegian Sea pushes North Atlantic water to the north (Into the Arctic Ocean), if not covered by sea ice.

3. If the Arctic is warming overall, 1. and 2. above, combined with mass balance and less sea ice, will cause a differential wind forcing and Arctic Ocean current gradient from east to west across the North Pole (or CCW), continuing down to the Canadian Archipelago, such that the remaining sea ice will concentrate north of Canada.

4. The evidence of this will be increasing temperatures and lessened sea ice north of Russia, and increased sea ice in the short term north of Canada as the structural integrity of the ice decreases and it is forced against the "sieve" of the Canadian Archipelago.

5. This overall warming in the Arctic would cause an increased thermohaline flow into the Arctic Ocean due to less sea ice, therefore more wind forcing, which will warm the Arctic Ocean waters.

So, what do you think so far?       Steve

Subject: Discrete Increments in Global Warming
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 07:49:53 GMT
From: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk (COURTNEY)
To: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>

Dear Steve:

You ask me of your comments, saying "What do you think so far ?" This gives me a problem. I offered you the last word and that offer was sincere. If I respond to your question then I will have broken my word when I offered you the "last word". And if I don't respond to your question then I will be snubbing you.

I think I have clearly stated my view and you have said why you disagree with me. Others can assess our views for themselves. I am content with that. In science it is often possible for more than one valid view to exist.

All the best     Richard

Subject: "Models are all we've got"
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 12:09:17 +0200
From: "Jarl Ahlbeck" <jarl.ahlbeck@abo.fi>
To: "S.A.Boehmer-Christiansen" <S.A.Boehmer-Christiansen@geo.hull.ac.uk>, "Steve Hemphill" <steve@hemphill.net>, <kirill.kondratyev@nierc.spb.ru>

Dear Sonja, you wrote:

Kondratyev et all published observation data to show that the Arctic is cooling in E&E, vol.5, no.5, 1999. (SAT, lake, dentroclimatic and bioproductivity data) Perhaps he himself could respond...We have already heard that the low temperatures may have been false in order to get more fuel.....What does the Russian Academy of Sciences have to say?

My comment:

Glacier researchers say the same, according to Dr. Henrik Osterholm (Finland) (in a debate article in Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland, 24.2.-2000) who together with Prof Wibjorn Karlen (Sweden) has studied Arctic glaciers and historical temperature records. He claims that the end of the 19th century may have been the coldest period for the Arctic since the last ice-age. Up to 1930 a warming took place followed by a stabilization or a slight cooling followed by a warming around 1990 that was almost as warm as around 1930. During 1995 -1999 a significant cooling of the Arctic has started. I do not know how they have calculated these results, and I have not seen the original publications, but Karlen has anyway a CV containing hundreds of referee-publication on the subject. As a matter of fact, Dr Osterholm is a well-known green activist.

Why should we trust Osterholm/Karlen/Kondratyev less than we trust scientists who get their money from the GW industry ?

regards,     Jarl

Subject: Models are all we've got
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 20:22:10 +0100
From: A.F.Gerl@t-online.de (A.F.Gerl)
To: daly@vision.net.au

Dear Richard,

you call the paper by Kahl "by far the most comprehensive assesment of Arctic temperatures that exists", which is very puzzling to me given the limitations I discussed. The map on the first page shows how small the area sampled actually is. Geometrically the Arctic is defined as "North of the Polar Circle", and this area is at least 10 times as big.

The GISS surface temperature record gives avarages for the entire Arctic (+ 2 degrees) (column 8 of http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt ) and it shows warming. Nor very impressive, but your claim of cooling is untenable. They should have included the results of Kahl et al. and if you want to check that you may write them about it or take a look at the gridded data files, which are also available.

Greetings, Franz

Subject: Selective beliefs.
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 09:25:09 +1300
From: "VINCENT GRAY" <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>
To: "Steve Hemphill" <steve@hemphill.net>, "COURTNEY" <richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk>

Dear Steve

You believe the satellites when they measure sea ice, but you do not believe them whem they tell you that the Arctic is not warming. Jim Hansen believes the satellites when they measure sea surface temperature, but he does not believe their measurements of land temperature.

Like the rest of the IPCC scientists, you select the data which suit your models and reject those which do not .

Regards     Vincent Gray

Subject: Surface vs Satellite - Where did the heat go?
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:58:38 -0500
From: NORMAN Jeff -FOSSIL <jeff.norman@ontariopowergeneration.com>
To: <daly@vision.net.au>

Mr. Daly

Thank you for the excellent presentation of the "Global Warming" Issues on your web site. I have been a frequent visitor for some time and now sincerely hope that I can make some sort of contribution to the on going discussion of the surface based global temperature trends and the satellite based global temperature trend.

I have been following various discussions started by the NRC report. One of the fundamental ideas that seems to me to be missing from this discussion is that the temperature measurements are really just a proxy indication of what is considered to be the real problem.

The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming has it that the energy balance of the Earth is being disrupted by increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 reduces the amount of energy radiated out into space thereby trapping energy in the atmosphere. This energy is then available to warm oceans, melt ice caps and increase air temperatures. Therefore it seems to me that we should be concerned about energy changes in the Earth's atmosphere which can be measured using temperature, pressure and concentration (moisture mostly). Since we do not or can not measure the global pressure or moisture we use changes in temperature as a proxy indication of the changing energy content of the atmosphere. Surely this must introduce more uncertainty to the mix.

I agree with your assertion that the trended data is important for establishing whether or not there is a trend that could validate forecasts and therefore the considerable political effort being expended.

However I also agree with Mr. Keller that looking at the year over year data can be valuable.

I used your comparison of the surface and the satellite results to prepare my own simple thought experiment based upon the NRC premise that both the surface and satellites measurements are real.

During the twenty years of accumulated data, there are nine years when the average surface temperatures decreased from the previous year. To me this would indicate to me (and only indicate) that during the one year time span, the lower atmosphere lost a quantity of heat energy. Where did the heat go? I find it difficult to conceive how a significant portion of this heat could have gone downwards. I would assume that most of it (as my old thermodynamics professor told it) went to Mars.

However, on the way to Mars it had to pass through the rest of the troposphere which is becoming more laden with CO2 and according to the theory less permeable to these kinds of heat fluxes.

Of the nine years when the average surface temperatures went downwards, eight years had coincidental reductions in the average satellite temperatures. Of these eight years of satellite data, six had average temperature reductions that exceeded the surface reductions.

Assuming the NRC contention that both the surface and the satellite data are real, this suggests a couple of possibilities.

1. The upper troposphere is transparent to any heat energy released from the surface atmosphere, or
2. The surface temperature measurements represent a relatively small portion of the overall troposphere and therefore less significance should be attributed to its trends.

On a different topic, have you seen the recent news releases pertaining to the study reported in Nature where sub surface temperature profiles have been used as a proxy measurement of global temperature trends? I have heard it reported that these Bore Hole Trends indicate a greater warming trend over the last two centuries than other measures have indicated. The majority of these subsurface measurements were made at mines. I thought you might be amused by my interpretation.

When a mining company opens a mine, they usually clear the surface creating large piles of debris. Sudbury Ontario provides an excellent example of how concurrent smelting operations can lead to wide spread environmental degradation.

The results of the Bore Hole Study appear to support Dr. Gray's thesis concerning the impacts of local surface use on atmospheric temperatures indications instead of general global warming.

Jeff Norman

Subject: Models are all we've got
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:56:11 GMT
From: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk (COURTNEY)
To: A.F.Gerl@t-online.de (A.F.Gerl)

Dear Franz:

Thank you for your advice concerning the GISS record. I genuinely appreciate it.

You dispute my calling the paper by Kahl et al. "by far the most comprehensive assesment of Arctic temperatures that exists", and you assert that "[my] claim of [Arctic] cooling is untenable" on the basis of the GISS data. Well, no.

Measurements are more reliable data than estimates. The paper by Kahl et al. is an assessment of more than 27,000 temperature profiles obtained in each case from several real temperature measurements. This is more than an order of magnitude more measuremants than the GISS or any other record, and I think this qualifies the Kahl et al. study as being "by far the most comprehensive assesment of Arctic temperatures that exists".

I have cited peer-reviewed publications showing direct measurements and proxy measurements that both indicate significant Arctic cooling since 1950. The peer-reviewed paper by Kahl et al. was published in 1993, and has not been challenged in any peer-reviewed publication since then. Simply, the evidence says the Arctic has cooled since 1950. The evidence indicates the truth. And the truth is not "untenable"; it is simply true. It often hurts, it may not fit a favoured theory, and it may be inconvenient, but none of these things stop it being the truth. I repeat, the truth is not "untenable".

All the best     Richard

Subject: Discrete Increments in Global Warming.
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:26:39 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
To: COURTNEY <richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk>

Dear Richard,

I misunderstood you previous message and apologize to you and to those to which this argument has become quite tedious.

I will summarize my position in our discussion here.

I agree there will be many regional differences in response to global changes in temperature. I also agree it is possible for more than one valid view to exist, but only one reality. This is similar to the classic definitions of the blind men describing the elephant, all definitions of different parts of the same elephant.

I don't agree that measurement of sea ice volume is a proxy measurement of global warming. Latent heat is real. Also real is the relatively massive amount of heat storage by the Arctic Ocean. I don't know anyone that believes the Arctic Ocean water is cooling, although I'm sure someone here will say that it is. Just as the water near the surface of a glass of ice tea stays cool as the ice throughout melts and the remaining ice continues to float, the surface of the Arctic Ocean near the remaining ice will be the last to warm. Glaciers as well need latent heat to melt. Therefore, the surface of the Arctic does not need to warming in sensible heat for global warming to be occurring anyway. I believe my thermos bottle example and explanation of increased intrusion of the North Atlantic into the (Eastern) Arctic have sufficiently covered the satellite and anecdotal data.

That being said I must again repeat my main argument, that is without arguing cause and effect the correlation between atmospheric CO2, warm temperatures, precipitation and vegetation growth is highly positive. Therefore, to run around like Chicken Little screaming about global warming and to even consider removing Carbon from our biosphere, may be the biggest mistake mankind could make in this time of so much worldwide starvation. There are many who would do so in the false belief they would be protecting themselves. I think that should be the main current message of science in this area.

I will close this with a link I just discovered about temperatures during the Pliocene, the warm period before the ice ages. If we jump beyond the Holocene Maximum, this could well be where we go: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/paleo/pliocene/index.html

It would be nice to have an accurate GCM

Steve

Subject: Models are all we've got
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 23:29:45 +0100
From: A.F.Gerl@t-online.de (A.F.Gerl)
To: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk

Dear Richard,

now it is for the readers to decide. It all comes down to a definition of the "Arctic". Yours is a small area of frozen ocean of about 1 million square kilometers, mine is the region bordered by the polar circle. For your area you can make a case that it cooled until 1990 for some parts of the year using one single record. The GISS temperature data base includes many such records, and it gives warming for the Arctic as defined in the lexikon.

Until the next exchange, Franz

P.S. La Nina seems to finally come to an end, subsurface temperatures in the East Pacific are increasing rapidly, and most models put an end to it in the near future (more so than last year).

Subject: Arctic temperatures - Reality check
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 10:13:26 +1100
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@vision.net.au
To: VINCENT GRAY <vinmary.gray@paradise.net.nz>, A.F.Gerl@t-online.de (A.F.Gerl)

Dear Vincent and Franz

Vincent Gray wrote to Steve Hemphill:

Like the rest of the IPCC scientists, you select the data which suit your models and reject those which do not .

In recent years there seems to a plethora of proxy studies, each trying to establish temperature trends not only in the distant past (where we have no other means of measurement), but also in the recent past where instrumental station records do exist. Are these expensive proxy studies funded in the hope that they will tell us something that simple thermometers do not?

The GISS/CRU gridded aggregations are unsatisfactory also as they seem to show trends often not visible at individual stations (where the temperatures are actually taken), suggesting that the GISS/CRU statistical procedures are faulty and clearly in need of rigorous review by independent statistical scientists. The MSU has been subject to this kind of rigorous review - so why not the surface record? As it stands, that record is simply unacceptable if for no other reason than the lack of independent scrutiny on how that record is compiled.

I show below four station records from the Arctic region (taking Franz Gerl's definition of Arctic as meaning all territory within the Arctic Circle). The data for these all come from the GISS website. It must be stressed that the key issue is not whether the Arcitc has or has not been warming in recent years, but whether it is warmer than previous decades when greenhouse gases were not a factor. Studies which claim warming since the 1960s are misleading because they ignore the significance of the 1930s which were the warmest period in the Arctic historically (apart from the MWE nearly 1,000 years ago of course). Some of the stations shown here do include the pre-war period and thus sets recent changes in their proper context of natural variability.

Dikson lies on the northern Arctic coast of Russia, one of the Arctic regions where `warming' is alleged to have happened. It is clear from this record that the 1930s and 1940s was the warmest time, and the 1960s the coldest.

Clyde is on the east coast of Baffin Island, Canada, directly opposite Greenland. It does not include the 1930s, but has nevertheless seen a clear cooling trend since the 1940s.

Bear Island sits in mid-ocean halfway between northern Norway and Spitzbergen. It thus stands right in the path of the warm ocean currents coming up into the Arctic Ocean from the south. Nothing remarkable here either, but note the anomalously cold period of the 1960s.

Vardo is on the Arctic coast of Northern Norway just a short distance from the Russian border, a fabulously long consistent record. The warmest period was the late 1930s, with little overall trend since then. This again sits in the eastern Arctic where allegations of warming have been made by proxy studies.

I have already shown Jan Mayen Island off the eastern coast of Greenland in a previous message, it too being warmest in the pre-war years and coldest in the 1960s.

The recent study on sea ice thickness (see my separate arcitle on this here) where submarine cruises to measure ice thickness by underwater sonar were compared between the 1960s and the 1990s can now been seen in the context of the 1960s being a particularly cold period, while the 1990s is warmer, though not as warm as the 1930s. Thus, critical to the `findings' of many of these proxy studies is the use of start and end dates which assure that a warming trend is registered and which ignores the previous very warm period of the 1930s. In other words, the claimed `warmings' are more an artifact of the dates chosen than of any real warming per se.

Proxy studies where the choice of dates being compared are critical and decisive in determining the final conclusion deserve much more rigorous review than they are currently getting.

Regards      John Daly

Subject: Arctic temperatures - Reality check
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 13:19:12 +1100
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@vision.net.au

Dear All

Further to my last email giving five Arctic station records, here is another station which I omitted. It is Ostrov Vize which is a small Rusian island in the eastern Arctic Ocean (the part alleged to be warming), located northeast of Novaya Zemlya. Ostrov Vize is as about as Arctic as it gets. The data runs from 1951 to 1999

It has not warmed, and the 1960s cold spell also shows up clearly.

Cheers     John Daly

Subject: Surface v. Satellites
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:56:54 -0600
From: hartley@rice.edu (Peter Hartley)
To: daly@vision.net.au

John:

I have been looking over some of the debates on your web site and it seems to me that no-one has yet explicitly nailed Chick Keller on the following claim:

"If the surface record is wrong, then so is the satellite record because they agree most of the time!! In fact careful comparison will show that for the first 13 years the satellite temperature anomalies were higher or equal to the surface record for all but two years (during strong La Niñas). Now, if there had been a significant contamination of the surface record by something like UHI (urban heat island) effect, how could the satellites be seeing even higher temperatures?"

I have been wondering what he was saying. As you and others have replied, how can one interpret trends in two series that are measuring different levels without essentially indexing them at some initial date and plotting proportional deviations from that level?

It occurs to me that his argument might be interpreted as follows. You take the means of each the two series over the whole sample and then measure "anomalies" as deviations from each of the means. This gets around the problem of these two series measuring different levels. In each case we look at deviations around the a mean instead of deviations around initial levels at some start date.

Now suppose we have one series that is trending down and the other that is trending up. Clearly, the deviations about the mean of the series that is trending down will be positive at the beginning of the sample while the deviations about the mean of the series that is trending up will be negative at the beginning of the sample. This seems to explain Chick Keller's observations. But it also exposes, I think, the weakness in his argument.

Regards, Peter Hartley

Peter Hartley
Economics MS#22
Rice University
6100 S. Main St.
Houston, TX 77005-1892

ph: 713 527 8101 ext 2534    fax: 713 285 5278

Subject: Arctic temperatures - Reality check
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 08:31:35 GMT
From: richard@courtney01.cix.co.uk (COURTNEY)
To: daly@vision.net.au

Dear John:

Thankyou for the data sets showing temperature records at 5 Arctic stations.

These 5 data sets you provide each shows a cooling trend for the period 1950 to 1990. This is consistent with the cooling trend detected over the Arctic Ocean between 1950 and 1990 that is reported by Kahl et al.. Franz Gerl has attempted to dismiss the findings of Kahl et al. as being a local artifact not indicated by ground-based stations and constrained to the Central and Western Arctic Ocean. The sites you report demonstrate that this is not the case.

All direct measurement results of Arctic temperature that have been reported in peer-reviewed literature indicate the Arctic surface has exhibited overall cooling in recent decades. As you say, there is no reason to suppose that this cooling is other than the normal ups-and-downs of natural variability. But the cooling is being vigorously denied by people who support predictions of climate models. This denial is not surprising because the predictions are for Arctic warming in recent decades when in reality the Arctic is observed to have cooled (i.e. the models predict the opposite of observed reality).

I agree with your interpretations of the 5 data sets you provide; i.e. They do not show a consistent long-term Arctic temperature trend. They each have a local maximum around year 1930 and a local minimum around year 1960. They suggest that the Arctic surface temperature varied in a manner consistent with natural variability throughout the twentieth century. And the variability generates temperature trends between different dates: i.e. the temperature series is observed to indicate Arctic warming or Arctic cooling depending on the start and end dates of the considered time period. Additionally, I observe that they are consistent with the findings of Kahl et al., and I thank you for that.

All the best      Richard

Subject: Models are all we've got
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 20:57:06 +0100
From: A.F.Gerl@t-online.de (A.F.Gerl)
To: daly@vision.net.au

Dear John,

you wrote:

The GISS/CRU gridded aggregations are unsatisfactory also as they seem to : show trends often not visible at individual stations (where the temperatures : are actually taken), suggesting that the GISS/CRU statistical procedures are : faulty and clearly in need of rigorous review by independent statistical : scientists.

You have claimed this often enough, but I have never seen it supported. There are more global temperature data sets, I am not aware of significant differences.

The MSU has been subject to this kind of rigorous review

read: People have found errors in it, and it had to be corrected.

so why not the surface record? As it stands, that record is simply : unacceptable if for no other reason than the lack of independent : scrutiny on how that record is compiled.

How very convenient. The data are there for anybody to create his own record, and the effort should be smaller than many which we see in the Anti-Greenhouse- industry.

I am not going to argue individual station data, the trend in the Arctic is too small to be seen compared to the noise. I am amazed that Richard can discover a cooling trend from 1950 to 1990 in them. Nevertheless I would find it interesting, if you could include station data from central and eastern Siberia, which are not near the coast, in your database.

I do not contest the findings of the Kahn et al paper, the Northern Oceans may even hold a very unpleasant surprise (the Broecker-scenario). However I find the paper on the threshold of being relevant due to the small coverage and the time passed since it was published.

I am also still puzzled by the fact that Richard gets excited, when he can find a minus-sign in the paper, but manages to ignore the sentence "As predicted by theory, Arctic surface temperatures have shown accelerated warming trends during the past century."

Regards Franz

Subject: Discrete Increments in Global Warming
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 10:38:35 -1000
From: George Birchard <gfb@aloha.net>
To: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>

Steve,

I'm glad you took a look at the Pliocene data. http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/paleo/pliocene/index.html The long-term cooling trend that started in the Pliocene is pretty scary. It makes global warming look benign by comparison. Pliocene conditions look pretty ideal. The irony is that human evolution may have been spurred by the miserable conditions of the Pleistocene!

I found the link http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/NASA/SOTC/sea_ice.html very informative. I have independently reached the conclusion you stated so clearly about increased flow of Atlantic water into the Arctic and the melting of ice in the Barents sea region. I think that the thermohaline circulation is increasing. The Pliocene reconstruction shows an enhancement of the thermohaline circulation associated with the reduction in Arctic sea ice, not a reduction as suggested by some modellers.

Sea Ice is no proxy. It is more important to global climate and than the surface temperature in Siberia which is strongly affected by local ground inversions. A huge amount of heat is required to melt polar ice. It is a significant part of the energy balance.

Some of this effect we are observing now could be related to long-term cycles in ocean currents such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [NOTE THE WARM PERIOD IN THE 30'S IN THE PACIFIC][Image]

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/~miletta/web/pdo_p1.html and its coupling with the thermohaline circulation.[d99fig6.gif] http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2000/fcst2000/d99fig6.gif

We still have a lot to learn about multi-decadal cycles in ocean circulation. Because the atmospheric circulation patterns strongly couple with the cycles in the ocean currents there is a natural variability in surface temperatures over those time periods. There are also subtle effects on surface temperatures that have not been recently discussed here. El Nino can cause much higher surface temperatures in eastern Siberia by increasing the winds and breaking up low level inversions (Angel, personal communication). Thus land surface temperatures can be very sensitive to changes in the ocean.

John Daly's article on ocean circulation is very flawed. Warmer water can subduct if it is sufficiently saline. For example, Mediterranean sea water is quite warm, yet it sinks 'like a rock' when it enters the Atlantic. The failure of the oceans to respond sensitively to rapid forcing does not indicate that the oceans are not sensitive to long-term forcing. However, it seems to me that we are all struggling to understand the role of the oceans better.

It seems to me that the modellers are having a tough time because they do not understand the oceans very well. Perhaps Chick is right that a tighter grid would better model moisture and other atmospheric variables. However, I wonder if the basic understanding of the oceans in the models is simply not good enough to give the models predictive value. If they cannot replicate Pliocene conditions, how can they predict the effects of increased CO2? Modelling is an accepted part of science, but making predictions based upon research models can quickly enter the realm of politics.

Regards     George

Subject: Discrete Increments in Global Warming - TAR-2000 Review
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 14:35:29 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
To: George Birchard <gfb@aloha.net>

Dear George,

Thanks for writing. It's frustrating to argue with someone who responds to the argument that anecdotal is irrelevant by sending more anecdotal data.

I agree the Pliocene seems more hospitable than the Pleistocene, but that the surges in climate during the Pleistocene may have brought Homo sapiens where we are today.

Here's my thinking on the thermohaline circulation. The reduction of thermohaline circulation scenario is the result of analyses based on early interglacial ice sheets melting and flooding the North Atlantic with incredibly massive amounts of fresh water that was held back behind ice dams. That potential no longer exists as the ice age ice sheets are, with the exception of Greenland, gone. While there is no guarantee that Greenland will not do the same thing, I think that's highly improbable as the former causative ice sheets covered much of North America. Besides, the return flow through the Canadian Archipelago and Davis Strait will still keep Greenland cooler than the rest of the far north.

I think a lot of the resistance to return flow of the Arctic continuance of the North Atlantic warm current northwards is in the return flow through this area. Just as slush gathers around a storm drain catch basin during snowmelt, the remaining sea ice in the Arctic gathers along the northern edge of the Canadian Archipelago. Since this is reducing, I believe we can expect the remnants to flush through one of these summers soon. What's left is allowing more warm water into the Arctic, and the tremendous warming of the Arctic Ocean water is indicative of the final gasp of this feedback mechanism

This is as important as the reduction in albedo and latent heat requirements of the sea ice.

I do believe Chick's right in that we need a tighter grid. I don't believe the Bering Strait is even allowed flow now in the models. Although it would be quite small the salinity differences may be important. I wonder if any long term studies of the current flow through the Bering Strait have been done. It could be a signal of differences in circulation in the Arctic Ocean due to sea ice changes, particularly in the amount of wind forcing on the flow from the North Atlantic to the Arctic...

Steve

Subject: Station data
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 10:29:19 +1100
From: "John L. Daly" <daly@vision.net.au
To: "A.F.Gerl" <A.F.Gerl@t-online.de>, Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>

A.F.Gerl wrote:

John Daly wrote:

The GISS/CRU gridded aggregations are unsatisfactory also as they seem to show trends often not visible at individual stations (where the temperatures: are actually taken), suggesting that the GISS/CRU statistical procedures are faulty and clearly in need of rigorous review by independent statistical scientists.

You have claimed this often enough, but I have never seen it supported.

It is supported by the observation that individual long-term rural stations around the world, even when pulled at random, rarely show the global pattern. This is especially so in the USA where the station data is of better quality. As for the polar regions, station data is so completely at variance with the model predictions that the modellers should really take a hard look as to why.

The MSU has been subject to this kind of rigorous review

read: People have found errors in it, and it had to be corrected.

Certainly, it was subject to intense (and hostile) review. Errors were found (satellite changeover, orbital drift and some others), and all these errors both insignificant and of both + and - sign. In such an advanced system, some small errors would be inevitable, and they were identified and relevant corrections made. The satellite data now published has been fully corrected for these errors.

But the surface record? No hostile reviews there (except from skeptics), no rigorous searching for errors, just a bland, blind, acceptance of the conclusions made. Before the world should be expected to spend trillions of dollars on GH mediation, this particular record should be independently scrutinised in the same way the MSU was.

The data are there for anybody to create his own record, and the effort should be smaller than many which we see in the Anti-Greenhouse industry.

Au contraire. The effort would be quite beyond the resources of any of the skeptics. We are talking about thousands of stations worldwide, not just as a statistical number crunch operation as GISS and CRU do, but an evaluation of each station's history to determine how sound it's record is. That would take a huge effort, which is why the greenhouse industry has been very happy to take GISS/CRU's results uncritically.

I am not going to argue individual station data, the trend in the Arctic is too small to be seen compared to the noise.

There are remarkably few long-term stations with data up to the present in the Arctic region. This is why the station data I present is much more indicative of the real picture there than the statistical aggregation by GISS and CRU who have spliced their results from stations, some of which have been discontinued, have short runs, or which are managed by people with little training or even competence. Only the consistent long-term stations can be treated credibly, and it is these I generally concentrate on.

... I would find it interesting, if you could include station data from central and eastern Siberia, which are not near the coast, in your database.

I present below (attached) a single chart comparing three stations, from 1936. The red line is the temperature of Turuhansk, Siberia (65.8N 87.9E) located inland on the Jenesei River. The purple line is from Dzardzan (68.7N 124E), located inland on the Lena river. The blue line is from Ostrov Kotel (76N 137.9E), an island off the Siberian northeast coast (and thus another Arctic Ocean station for our collection - and showing the same trend as the others).

The last two show slight cooling trends (thus confirming Richard's statement that the Arctic really has been cooling), while Turuhansk shows long-term variability. It should be noted that 1936 was chosen as start date because the last two began there. However, Turuhansk goes back to the 1880s and it saw a warming trend during the 1920s, obviously unrelated to GH.

Steve Hemphill wrote:

It's frustrating to argue with someone who responds to the argument that anecdotal is irrelevant by sending more anecdotal data.

`Anecdote' - "A short, entertaining account of some event" (Webster's New World Dictionary)

I am surprised to find you repeat this idea that solid numerical station data, direct measurements of actual temperature on the surface, be dismissed as merely `anecdotal', but you find no difficulty in accepting proxy studies where the connection between temperature and the proxy may be tenuous at best. You made the same strange remark when I posted the data for the South Pole and Vostok, calling them `anecdotal' too. `Anecdotal' means the evidence may be based on impressions, hearsay, opinions etc. Station data is recorded temperatures on site, and certainly not anecdotal at all. Using your strange definition, even the evidence of yesterday's sunrise was only anecdotal.

To refer to station data as merely `anecdotal' would mean all measured scientific data was anecdotal too.

Basically, it seems you get frustrated not by `anecdotes', but by physical evidence. Station data are physical evidence applicable to the place where the data was gathered. Where numerous stations in the same region show similar data, it then becomes material evidence that the region as a whole is trending the same way the stations in that region show it to be. In the case of the Arctic and Antarctic, that means a slight cooling. Anything else is just modelling, tenuous proxies, and politics.

-- John L. Daly

Subject: Individual Station data
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:53:36 -0700
From: Steve Hemphill <steve@hemphill.net>
Organization: Earth
To: daly@vision.net.au

Dear John,

Anecdotal evidence is incomplete evidence. A highway death at some location is sad, but it does not mean that highway or all highways are dangerous and should be eliminated. That one death is anecdotal evidence. It is not "impressions, hearsay, opinions etc." It is a fact. However, in the larger picture of whether highways are safe and a net gain or loss to society it is only anecdotal evidence.

You are using data from a few individual geographic points and stating the entire region follows those trends. You refuse to acknowledge that the mere surface record at these points does not represent the entire arctic. Arctic Ocean water at depth is warming, sea ice is shrinking and glaciers are retreating. You either do not understand the relative heat capacity of water and latent heat or refuse to acknowledge them. Either way you are only continuing to spew dogma.

Steve H