cc: "'David R. Easterling'" <david.easterling@noaa.gov>
date: Thu Apr 21 08:33:47 2005
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Chapter 3.4.1
to: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@ucar.edu>, David Parker <david.parker@metoffice.gov.uk>, Brian Soden <bsoden@rsmas.miami.edu>

    Kevin,
       A very slightly revised 3.4.1 attached. It reads well and the CCSP-based figures
    are fine. Not keen on their use of running means, but the message is clear. Agree
    on deleting the highlighted bits of text. Added in the word radiances a few times,
    wrt raw MSU data.
    Cheers
    Phil
   At 17:13 18/04/2005, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

     Hi Phil and David, and  Brian
     I believe you three are probably closest to the satellite temperature record issue and
     so I am sending this to you.  I have thoroughly gone over all the comments we received
     and I have prepared a revised 3.4.1 which is attached.  This is the cleaned up version.
     The actual version has tracking turned on but the changes are so extensive that they are
     very hard to follow.  As you know, I have read the entire CCSP report and commented
     extensively on it.  I know Phil was on the review team and David was there as a lead
     author.  However David and Phil may not be as familiar with the whole report.
     Obviously this remains a controversial topic.  Many of the comments we received were
     diametrically opposed to one another.  The rhetoric was disappointing (especially from
     Peter Thorne).  In fact Peter's comments are mostly not useful and reveal very strong
     biases against Fu and reanalyses.  Previously, you'll recall that David provided most of
     the text and I edited it and updated it with the Fu material in a somewhat ad hoc
     fashion that got almost everyone mad.  Probably a good thing to do in retrospect, as
     this next version will look so much better.  Note that I have done nothing with the
     appendices at this point, so that needs to be addressed.  I have taken out all the
     tables??
     You will see even in the current text that I have 2 sections I would like to delete.
     While individual comparisons of radiosonde station data with collocated satellite data
     (Christy and Norris, 2004) suggest that the median trends of radiosonde temperatures in
     the troposphere are generally very close to UAH trends and a little less than RSS
     trends, trends at individual radiosonde sites vary and root mean square differences of
     UAH satellite data with radiosondes are substantial (Hurrell et al., 2000). Moreover, as
     noted in 3.4.1.1, comparisons with radiosonde data are compromised by the multiple
     problems with the latter, and there are diurnal cycle influences on them over land. In
     the stratosphere, radiosonde trends are more negative than both MSU retrievals,
     especially RSS. [DELETE THIS?]
     The problem here is the rhetoric of Christy et al.  In his contribution Christy
     justifies the UAH record by saying that "median trends agree with those of sondes".  But
     he actually sent to us his Fig. 2 showing the lack of agreement in general.  It is only
     the median that agrees, the agreement with sondes individually is not good and this is
     just for trends. [Hence the median depends on the selection of stations].  It is even
     worse if rms differences are examined (as in Hurrell et al 2000).  The only reason to
     include this is to rebut Christy's claim.  For most other readers it has no business
     being there.  Your suggestions appreciated.  Maybe this should go in the appendix?
     You will see that I have stolen 2 figures from the CCSP report.  I made up the 3rd
     figure from data provided from the CCSP report plus extra material (only the global is
     in the current draft).  It would also be nice to include a spatial map of trends at the
     surface and for the troposphere (T2 corrected as from Fu) but no such figure exists
     anywhere, yet.  We can get trends from RSS and UAH for T2.  It would be good to have
     access to the originals so we can modify them and clean up the terminology.  {On that
     score, I don't think the CCSP terminology is tenable given the new retrievals of Fu et
     al (2005) and ours, using T2, T3, and T4 is much easier).
     At present the CCSP report is not very useful to us. Some figures are useful.  It may
     become so, but I actually have my doubts, given the vested interests of the authors.
     I am tempted to send this to Tom Karl in his role as editor of our chapter, and of
     course he is head of the CCSP effort, but I would NOT want him to use it for CCSP
     (except that it might highlight the differences in assessments).  What do you think?
     Via Tom we might get better access to the figures and updates?  Also I'l l cc David
     Easterling.
     This would be the main basis for FOD.
     Ideally also it is desirable to get the figures updated thru 2004, but can we?
     Please read this version and let me know what you think?  (Please be kind, I have put in
     a LOT of work on this)
     Best regards
     Kevin
--
****************
Kevin E. Trenberth                              e-mail: [1]trenbert@ucar.edu
Climate Analysis Section, NCAR                  [2]www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/
P. O. Box 3000,                                 (303) 497 1318
Boulder, CO 80307                               (303) 497 1333 (fax)

Street address: 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO  80303

   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
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

