date: Fri May 20 12:53:40 2005
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Latest MSU results
to: "Thomas C Peterson" <Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov>

    Tom,
       Thanks for the update. Heard much the same from Ben and Chris who were at the
    HC from Wednesday. Jim Hurrell also said that Roy deserves a lot of credit.  Will
    make the section in Ch 3 a lot easier.
        Your last sentence is highly amusing !
    Cheers
    Phil
   At 19:07 18/05/2005, you wrote:

     Hi, Phil,
     I just thought I'd send my CCSP trip report on to you too as it discusses the latest
     developments in MSU VTT matters that I'm sure you will be addressing in IPCC.
     Unfortunately, some of the papers being submitted on these matters are to Science so
     they are embargoed until published.  I didn't describe Ben's work (with Tom Wigley).  It
     looked at the relationship between sfc, lower trop and upper tropospheric temperatures
     in over 40 models and found out that the UAH lower trop was out of the model range.
               -Tom
     Trip Report:  Chicago, May 16-17, 2005
     CCSP Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere Lead Authors Meeting
     In this meeting we decided how to address the numerous official NRC review comments.  It
     led to many good plans and, fortunately, only a moderate amount of additional work for
     me to do.  But the important part, the reason Im sending out a trip report more widely,
     was the reports on new research by Ben Santer, Carl Mears, Qiang Fu (presented by Dian
     Seidel) and Steve Sherwood (briefly described by John Lanzante).  As an upshot, the
     report will be changed to:
     Use the Fu data for tropospheric temperatures as we agreed that his new work is more
     reliable than his initial derivation and better represents what is going on in the
     troposphere than MSU 2 alone does.  Fu applies a mathematical weighting formula to
     remove the stratospheric component from the MSU 2s mostly tropospheric temperatures.  As
     the stratosphere is cooling, Fus adjustment shows the troposphere warming more than MSU
     2 alone would indicate.
     RSS has developed a new lower tropospheric temperature data set that shows considerable
     warming.  In the process of comparing their work with UAHs effort, they found what
     appears to be an error in the UAH lower tropospheric temperatures.
     John Christy and Roy Spencer, after listening to Carl and digesting his comments, agreed
     that it is quite likely that an error is in their lower tropospheric temperature
     formula.  John estimates that in the tropics this will change the trend from (if I
     recall correctly) 0.0 K/decade to 0.1 K/decade.  This is a giant step forward in
     reconciling vertical temperature trends.  And I must say that the way they reacted to
     this news and the plans they drew up to address it reflects very well on their character
     and scientific integrity.
     Also, John Lanzante talked about some recent work by Steve Sherwood that uncovers what
     may be an inherent cold bias in daytime radiosondes.
     The meeting ended with Roger Pielke, Sr. arguing with Tom Karl about the goal for VTT
     synthesis report.
     Regards,
           Tom Peterson
--
Thomas C. Peterson, Ph.D.
Climate Analysis Branch
National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
Voice: +1-828-271-4287
Fax: +1-828-271-4328

--
Thomas C. Peterson, Ph.D.
Climate Analysis Branch
National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
Voice: +1-828-271-4287
Fax: +1-828-271-4328

   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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