date: Fri Feb 15 11:59:49 2008
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: A warning for Feb 7-8
to: Robert Marsh <rma@noc.soton.ac.uk>

    Bob,
      Thanks for the abstracts.  Courtillot can happily go off and reinvent the wheel.
    Why dos he need daily data to look at large-scale temperature change?
      Estimating global mean T is simple. Why does he need to complicate it !

    Cheers
    Phil
   At 09:52 13/02/2008, you wrote:

     Phil -
     The meeting was rather bizarre in scope, with positions ranging from
     "IPCC too cautious" (Hansen, Siddall) to "IPCC wrong" (see below). It
     was only modestly attended, but by an eclectic mix of people (30-50 at
     any one time). Most talks were sincere and specific in focus
     (volcanoes, ice sheets, CO2 sequestration, etc.). To be honest, I
     attended (and contributed a poster) to support my head-of-school
     (Andrew Roberts, a geomagnetist), who organized the meeting. He knows
     Courtillot from his discipline & invited him, but Andrew is no skeptic
     himself - indeed he's driving efforts at NOCS to reduce our carbon
     footprint.
     There were two climate skepic talks: Vincent Courtillot and Arnold &
     Robinson, "Solar modulation of atmospheric transport processes" (Dept.
     Physics & Astronomy, U. Leicester). Courtillot was fairly rude about
     the groups contributing air temperature data to the AR4, also
     ridiculing the fact that only two groups work on such important data
     (he expects more international competition, hence his belated efforts).
     He claims that the raw data is witheld due to some agreement - the
     point you to which you refer below. Based on his limited analysis of
     European (and a few N. American) station data, he concludes most
     continental scale warming comprises rapid regime shifts, inevitably
     linked to the sun (but without explanation). Pressed for an opinion, he
     believes that CO2 has a negligible influence on climate, and that by
     2050 the world will be no warmer than the MWP. I wanted to question him
     publicly (on the evidence from other changes such as increasing OHC)
     but I didn't get the chance due to heavy & inevitable questioning on
     ethics of his casual attitude towards climate change.
     The other talk was more scientifically searching, drawing attention to
     influence of coronal mass ejections on the mesosphere, residual
     atmospheric circulation & teleconnections between high/low atmosphere &
     high/low latitudes that support the extent & pattern of surface
     warming. Arnold also claimed that CO2 doesn't really matter. I did pose
     a question to him, asking how he can ignore all the AR4 model evidence
     for attribution of 20th century warming to CO2, but he dismisses all
     OAGCMs as flawed in under-representing the high atmosphere/solar
     influence. I have abstracts for both talks that I can send on - are you
     interested to see them?
     Regards,
     Bob.
     On 6 Feb 2008, at 15:43, Phil Jones wrote:

      Bob,
        If you can send me a couple of sentences next week sometime
      that would be good.
        If Courtillot should go on about the CRU station data, then he
      can get almost the same data from NCDC. As you know,
      we do release the gridded data, which is what everybody wants.
      Cheers
      Phil
     At 14:39 06/02/2008, you wrote:

     Phil - I am indeed presenting a poster at the meeting
     tomorrow/Friday. I appreciate the forewarning! Speak soon - Bob.
     On 6 Feb 2008, at 13:36, Phil Jones wrote:

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

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