Quote of the week #28

TheSkyIsFalling (21:08:26), you raise an interesting issue. So following Gavin’s suggestion, let’s compare and contrast what climate scientists actually have said, with what Phil Jones is saying now:
Phil Jones, CRU email,

It is important to learn about past climate change, especially over the past 1000 years, but it is even important to use new and improved evidence from proxy sources (i.e. not to cling to outdated concepts of the past such as the MWP and LIA). How can we ever hope to progress if we have conform to incorrect concepts?

Martin Juckes, CRU emails:

With regard to the temperatures of the last millennium, the primary conclusion of JBB1998 is that the twentieth century was the warmest of the millennium. There is clear evidence of a cool period from 1500 to 1900, but no strong “Medieval Warm Period” [MWP] …
However, the question of practical importance is not whether [the MwP] was warmer than the 12th to 19th centuries, which is generally accepted, but whether it was a period of comparable warmth to the late 20th century. MBH1999 concluded, with 95% confidence, that this was not so.

Tim Osborne, CRU emails:

Dahl-Jensen showed the temperatures obtained by inverting the borehole temperature profiles. This has a colder MWP relative to the recent period, which shows strong recent warming.

Phil Jones, CRU emails:

My response would have been what is the point of doing any more paleo work, if we are constrained by the answer we are allowed to get. If we don’t have the MWP and LIA then we are wrong. We have orders of magnitude more data than when these came into vogue in the 1960s, but we still are expected to find them.

Tom Crowley, CRU emails:

… with respect to the MWP all you have to do is plot the data up and compile them – the numbers don’t work out as being warmer than the present – at best approaching or slightly exceeding mid-20th c.

Michael Mann, CRU emails:

The statement by S03 that the Mann and Jones [2003] reconstruction “clearly shows temperatures in the MWP that are as high as those in the 20th century” is misleading if not false. M03 emphasize that it is the late, and not the early or mid 20th century warmth, that is outside the range of past variability.

Michael Mann, CRU emails:

… it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back.

MIchael Mann, CRU emails:

But to then turn around and present a fundamentally ill-posed, supposed “analysis” which doesn’t even attempt to provide a quantitative “alternative” to past studies, to claim to have disproven those past studies, and to supposedly support the non-sequitor conclusion that the “MWP was warmer than the 20th century” is irresponsible, deceptive, dishonest, and a violation of the very essence of the scientific approach in my view.

Edward Cook, CRU emails:

As you know, I have publicly stated that I never intended to imply that the MWP was as warm as the late 20th century (e.g., my New York Times interview).

Phil Jones, CRU emails:

I need to wait to se what he says. Our paper (me, Tim and Keith) clearly says that the MWP couldn’t have been warmer (for the NH average) than the late 20th century.

OK, that’s what they said then. The MWP wasn’t and “couldn’t have been” warmer than the late 20th century. They were all in agreement.
On the other hand, here’s Phil Jones now, from the BBC interview:

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

And here’s Gavin Schmidt’s comment from RC:
[Response: You have to get past the appalling spin put on them by the Mail first. The actual statements are online at the BBC. There is absolutely nothing new here unless you’ve actually fallen for the strawman caricature of what climate scientists are supposed to have been saying. – gavin]
For decades the CRU un-indicted co-conspirators have been publicly saying that the MWP was cooler than the late 20th century. MBH99 said it was 99% certain that the MWP was cooler. In private they have been saying that they need to “contain the ‘putative’ MWP”.
Now Phil Jones is saying well, actually, we don’t know whether it was warmer or not …
You can tell when Gavin is lying because his lips are moving. Of all of the players in this game, I consider him the most dishonest. He will say anything that he thinks will support his previous lies …