cc: tom@ocean.tamu.edu, klaus.hasselmann@dkrz.de, hegerl@atmos.washington.edu, bsanter@pcmdi.llnl.gov, taylor13@llnl.gov,        sfbtett@meto.gov.uk, allen@wobble.ag.rl.ac.uk
date: Tue Oct  3 11:53:12 2000
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Fwd: EPA science czar Pest  &  a Stronger Sun no less
to: jtkon@ncar.ucar.edu, tim barnett <tbarnett-ul@ucsd.edu>


 Tim and Jeff,
     Simon Tett and I went to conference that the press releases relates to.
 This was in Tenerife last week. The conference was entitled solar
 variability and climate, but climatologists were very thin on the ground.
     There were a few good talks on the sun, but many were poor and few
 of those present seem to take in what I was saying about the observations
 and the paleo data, nor what Simon said about models and detection. Many
 in the solar terrestrial physics community seem totally convinced that
 solar output changes can explain most of the observed changes we are
 seeing. The far-sighted ones are begining to doubt with the rapid rate
 of recent warming, however.
     The press releases relate to pre-publicity by the solar terrestrial
 community to justify the conference, the SOHO mission (which is only
 6 years of data !!!) and to give support to a CERN idea (costing at least
 2 million UK pounds) to mimic galactic ray bombardment/cloud increase
 ideas. This latter idea is attempting to prove Svensmark's ideas.
     There was nothing new at the conference, but the solar terrestrial
 group are not going to go away. The next IPCC report may keep them quiet
 for a while, but trying to downplay solar influences in thier mind will
 probably be impossible. As with the greenhouse skeptics they are so set
 in their ways and have little comprehension of our literature beyond
 what they read in Science and Nature.

     If we do another statement at the end of the present work, we should
 perhaps consider explicitly saying something. Can we discuss this for
 a few minutes in Luneburg.

 Cheers
 Phil

