Thursday, November 24, 2011

As they see us



Climate skeptics as seen from the viewpoint of the warmist community - a small selection of references:
0034 Phil Jones to Thomas C Peterson. 18 September 2009

"Skeptics will use anything to undermine things".

0112 Michael E. Mann to Gavin Schmidt and others. 5 February 2005

Sea level: Your correspondent does not disagree with my statement that the IPCC has revised its upper-bound estimate of sea level rise to 17 inches (0.43m). He says, however, that this upper bound is based on the A1 scenario, by which world population will peak in mid-century at ~9bn and fall thereafter. So was the 2001 report's upper bound of 0.88m.

I was correctly comparing like for like. The Sunday Telegraph, which reported these figures, has been told that the revisions arise from "better data" now available to the IPCC, supporting skeptics' conclusions that the IPCC's figures are little better than exaggerated guesses. Morner (2004) concludes firmly that there is little evidence for sea level rising any faster now than it has in geologically-recent times.

0194 Phil Jones to Kevin Trenberth. 12 July 2005

"Here's some thoughts on the captions for the maps. I think we need this sort of detail to keep skeptics happy".

0217 Phil Jones to Tom Wigley. 3 December 2008

"People shouldn't be looking at individual months, but the skeptics do to keep saying that there has been no warming since 1998. To counter this you just have to look at the average versus the 2001 to 2008 average".

0239 Michael E. Mann to Malcolm Hughes and others. 16 October 2003

"Those lacking the background and/or patience to penetrate the two papers, and seriously wanting to know who is more likely to be right, have the option of asking somebody who does possess these characteristics - preferably somebody outside the handful of ideologically committed and/or oil-industry-linked professional climate-change skeptics - to evaluate the controversy for them. Better yet, one could poll a number of such people".

0248 Narasimha D. Rao to Stephen H Schneider on "BBC U-turn on climate". 14 October 2009

"You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change, on Friday wrote that theres been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force cooling for the next 20-30 years. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are other skeptics views".

0323 Phil Jones to David Wuertz and Russell Vose. 15 September 2004

"One of you gave Dave Easterling some plots for the SH, NH, globe and also for Australia. Russ had some text. If this can be expanded on and completed/submitted it can be referred to by IPCC - and maybe keep the skeptics quiet for a few days".

0371 Keith Briffa to Michael E. Mann and Ed Cook. 12 April 2002

"I have sought to clarify in my letter to Science, and in my messages to you all, and the comparison plot I provided), I believe it is either sloppy or disingenuous reasoning to argue that this is the case. The fact that this sloppiness also readily serves the interests of the skeptics is quite unfortunate, but it is indeed beside the point!

It would probably also be helpful for me to point out, without naming names, that many of our most prominent colleagues in the climate research community, as well government funding agency representatives, have personally contacted me over the past few weeks to express their dismay at the way they believe this study was spun".

0390 Phil Jones to Michael E. Mann. 1 May 2007

"Unsurprisingly the skeptics aren't keen on Ch 6! I think it is a pretty good assessment, as is Ch 3 and the rest of the report. They will likely try the argument that the CLAs and LAs have assessed their own work. If they do this, I'll leave this to Susan to respond to".

0438 Phil Jones to various re raw data. 9 September 2007

What I would do, in response to the comment, is to suggest that the skeptics derive their own gridded temperature data. They can use the GISS data, and then assess which stations they want to use etc. They don't want to do this, as it is lots of hard work, and it is much easier to criticize.

0552 Phil Jones to Chris Folland. 6 January 2009

The Nature Geosciences paper looks good - so hope it gets reviewed favourably. It will be a useful thing to refer to, but I can't see it cutting any ice with the skeptics. They think the models are wrong, and can't get to grips with natural variability!

0601 Phil Jones to David Jones. 6 September 2007

Hi David, Shoni tells me you're having to respond to some skeptics. I commiserate with you!

David Jones to Phil Jones. 7 Spetember 2007

Fortunately in Australia our sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent.

0614 Phil Jones to Kevin Trenberth and others. 20 December 2004

As climatologists we are often changing base periods and have done for years. I remember getting a number of comments when I changed … If we go to a more recent one the anomalies will seem less warm - I know this makes no sense scientifically, but it gives the skeptics something to go on about! If we do the simple way, they will say we aren't doing it properly.
One gets the impression they are partly fearful, partly resentful and partly dismissive. Whatever else, they don't like it up 'em.

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