cc: "Shoni Dawkins" <S.Dawkins@bom.gov.au>
date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 08:28:03 +1000
from: "David Jones" <D.Jones@bom.gov.au>
subject: RE: African stations used in HadCRU global data set
to: "Phil Jones" <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>

   Thanks Phil for the input and paper. I will get back to you with comments next week.
   Fortunately in Australia our sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent. It is also
   easier for us in that we have a policy of providing any complainer with every single
   station observation when they question our data (this usually snows them) and the
   Australian data is in pretty good order anyway.
   Truth be know, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don't need
   meteorological data to see it. Almost everyone of our cities is on the verge of running out
   of water and our largest irrigation system (the Murray Darling Basin is on the verge of
   collapse - across NSW farmer have received a 0% allocation of water for the coming summer
   and in Victoria they currently have 5% allocations - numbers that will just about see the
   death of our fruit, citrus, vine and dairy industries if we don't get good spring rain).
   The odd things is that even when we see average rainfall our runoffs are far below average,
   which seems to be a direct result of warmer temperatures. Recent polls show that
   Australians now rate climate change as a greater threat than world terrorism.
   Regards,
   David
   d.jones@bom.gov.au
   -----Original Message-----
   From: Phil Jones [[1]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
   Sent: Thu 9/6/2007 11:31 PM
   To: David Jones
   Cc: Shoni Dawkins
   Subject: Re: African stations used in HadCRU global data set  [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
     Hi David,
       Shoni tells me you're having to respond to some skeptics. I
   commiserate with you!
     There is a map of the stations used in this paper.
     Brohan, P., Kennedy, J., Harris, I., Tett, S.F.B. and Jones, P.D.,
   2006: Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed
   temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850. J. Geophys. Res. 111,
   D12106, doi:10.1029/2005JD006548.
      The pdf of this paper is much too large to email, so I hope you
   can find it through AGU.
     Figure 1, early on is the one you want. It isn't very large, and
   the colouring we used
     to distinguish three aspects of the stations doesn't really help.
      As an aside, I'm attaching a 2 page document which I would greatly
   appreciate your
     views on. I've passed it by a few here, but getting someone good
   outside to read it
     through would be very useful.
      I've written his to go with the list of 4138 series we use. The
   text is designed to explain
     the list, including:
     - why the WMO numbers in some countries may not agree with those used in some
     countries.
     - why the place names and countries may not be what they are currently
     - why the above two issues don't matter, and also why the exact
   station locations
       don't matter either!
     and a few other things.
      This with the list will likely go up next week on our web site.
   Then the **** will hit
     the fan! All this stems from a number of Freedom of Information
   requests we've
     had in the UK. I've stuck to my principles and said I won't be
   releasing the station
     data , but instead will be putting this list up. The requester
   agreed to these fields.
     They didn't ask for the years of record for each site, nor would I
   have provided this.
     So, in a way, it is useless.
       Africa is probably the worst continent for sites (discounting
   Antarctica). We have
     spent a lot of effort trying to improve things though.
        A couple of other useful issues to mention in any reply to the
   skeptics you might make:
     1. If you read Brohan et al. (2006) look at Figure 4. This is a
   histogram of all
     the monthly adjustments we apply (calculated by us and Lucie Vincent of AES
     in Canada). The bottom line of it is that site changes make very
   little difference.
     Getting them right is important locally, but not globally.
     2. What matters to the global average is the biases. The urban bias
   is smallish
     and one-sided. The SST bucket/intake bias is what really matters to
   the long-term
     warming.
      As another aside, I did respond to another FOI request. This related to this
     paper
     Jones, P.D., Groisman, P.Ya., Coughlan, M., Plummer, N., Wang, W-C.
   and Karl, T.R., 1990:  Assessment of urbanization effects in time
   series of surface air temperature over land.  Nature 347, 169-172.
      This has resulted in a fraud allegation by one of the skeptics,
   which is being
     dealt with!  Don't mention this to anyone at the moment - except Neil Plummer
     and Mile Coughlan. I suspect the skeptics will move on the
   Australian and Russian
     aspects of the 1990 paper at some point.
       Happy Days !
     Cheers
     Phil
   At 13:34 06/09/2007, you wrote:
   >Hello Phil,
   >
   >David Jones is currently in a debate with a few sceptics and is
   >trying to source a list of the African stations that CRU uses in its
   >HadCRU global temperature dataset.
   >
   >
   >On the CRU website it states that "Maps/tables giving the density of
   >coverage through time are given for land regions by Jones and Moberg (2003)."
   >
   >This may be the easiest place for David to source the information -
   >unfortunately my athens login has expired so I cannot access the
   >full paper. David should be able to get it through our library at
   >the Bureau though - is this easiest place to locate a list of stations?
   >
   >Also, are you going to be at the university tomorrow? We leave on
   >Saturday, so it would be good to come in and say good bye. I could
   >also pop in this afternoon if that is better.
   >cheers
   >Shoni
   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
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