cc: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
date: Wed Sep  3 14:00:06 2003
from: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: An idea to pass by you
to: Edward Cook <drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu>

   ED
   without the slightest doubt , I do wish to be involved in this AND/OR something like it -
   what I wanted to do (to be frank) myself, is to do a piece with you, Tim and Tom Melvin and
   Jan(?) , on the validity of the low frequency components of the family of reconstructions -
   but with the emphasis on the tree-ring side . Tim is certainly (with me and you - remember)
   doing a paper for The Holocene on the areas of uncertainty in these attempts (focusing on
   calibration issues, spatial representation of predictors (spatial and time scale bias),
   seasonal bias and relating these , ultimately. to the reliability of the reconstructions
   {This is my version of what will be in it but he may disagree} . The basic point is that I
   (and I think he) agree that Mike and Phil's latest contribution is a step backwards ( in
   time and understanding ) - well in reality I do not believe it is a step forward. I need to
   read you message in detail and then phone tomorrow (I HAVE to get this PhD report off to
   New Zeland now) after talking to Tim . You know I desperately want to produce a new
   temperature reconstruction from the various tree-ring data (and explore the Mann western US
   PC correction  - though Malcolm has ignored my request for the data) . At the least , all
   this requires that I come to see you (and perhaps Tim too).
   I WILL be in touch ....
   Keith
   At 08:32 AM 9/3/03 -0400, you wrote:

     Hi Keith,
     After the meeting in Norway, where I presented the Esper stuff as described in the
     extended abstract I sent you, and hearing Bradley's follow-up talk on how everybody but
     him has fucked up in reconstructing past NH temperatures over the past 1000 years (this
     is a bit of an overstatement on my part I must admit, but his air of papal infallibility
     is really quite nauseating at times), I have come up with an idea that I want you to be
     involved in.  Consider the tentative title:
     "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Over The Past Millennium: Where Are The Greatest
     Uncertainties?"
     Authors:  Cook, Briffa, Esper, Osborn, D'Arrigo, Bradley(?), Jones (??), Mann
     (infinite?) - I am afraid the Mike and Phil are too personally invested in things now
     (i.e. the 2003 GRL paper that is probably the worst paper Phil has ever been involved in
     - Bradley hates it as well), but I am willing to offer to include them if they can
     contribute without just defending their past work - this is the key to having anyone
     involved. Be honest. Lay it all out on the table and don't start by assuming that ANY
     reconstruction is better than any other.
     Here are my ideas for the paper in a nutshell (please bear with me):
     1) Describe the past work (Mann, Briffa, Jones, Crowley, Esper, yada, yada, yada) and
     their data over-laps.
     2) Use the Briffa&Osborn "Blowing Hot And Cold" annually-resolved recons (plus Crowley?)
     (boreholes not included) for comparison because they are all scaled identically to the
     same NH extra-tropics temperatures and the Mann version only includes that part of the
     NH (we could include Mann's full NH recon as well, but he would probably go ballistic,
     and also the new Mann&Jones mess?)
     3) Characterize the similarities between series using unrotated (maybe rotated as well)
     EOF analysis (correlation for pure similarity, covariance for differences in amplitude
     as well) and filtering on the reconstructions - unfiltered, 20yr high-pass, 100-20
     bandpass, 100 lowpass - to find out where the reconstructions are most similar and
     different - use 1st-EOF loadings as a guide, the comparisons of the power spectra could
     also be done I suppose
     4) Do these EOF analyses on different time periods to see where they differ most, e.g.,
     running 100-year EOF windows on the unfiltered data, running 300-year for 20-lp data
     (something like that anyway), and plot the 1st-EOF loadings as a function of time
     5) Discuss where the biggest differences lie between reconstructions (this will almost
     certainly occur most in the 100 lowpass data), taking into account data overlaps
     6) Point out implications concerning the next IPCC assessment and EBM forcing
     experiments that are basically designed to fit the lower frequencies - if the greatest
     uncertainties are in the >100 year band, then that is where the greatest uncertainties
     will be in the forcing experiments
     7) Publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address
     Without trying to prejudice this work, but also because of what I almost think I know to
     be the case, the results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit
     about <100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe
     the proxy estimates), but honestly know fuck-all about what the >100 year variability
     was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all).
     Of course, none of what I have proposed has addressed the issue of seasonality of
     response. So what I am suggesting is strictly an empirical comparison of published 1000
     year NH reconstructions because many of the same tree-ring proxies get used in both
     seasonal and annual recons anyway. So all I care about is how the recons differ and
     where they differ most in frequency and time without any direct consideration of their
     TRUE association with observed temperatures.
     I think this is exactly the kind of study that needs to be done before the next IPCC
     assessment. But to give it credibility, it has to have a reasonably broad spectrum of
     authors to avoid looking like a biased attack paper, i.e. like Soon and Balliunas.
     If you don't want to do it, just say so and I will drop the whole idea like a hot
     potato. I honestly don't want to do it without your participation. If you want to be the
     lead on it, I am fine with that too.
     Cheers,
     Ed
     --
     ==================================
     Dr. Edward R. Cook
     Doherty Senior Scholar and
     Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory
     Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
     Palisades, New York 10964  USA
     Email:  drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu
     Phone:  845-365-8618
     Fax:    845-365-8152
     ==================================

   --
   Professor Keith Briffa,
   Climatic Research Unit
   University of East Anglia
   Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.

   Phone: +44-1603-593909
   Fax: +44-1603-507784
   [1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa[2]/

