This post will be a top “sticky” post for some time, new essays will appear below this one. UPDATES as emails are noted, will appear below.  – Anthony

UPDATE8 3/19/13: Jeff Condon has received legal notice from UEA warning him not to release the password. So far, I have not seen any such notice. For those who demand it be released, take note. – Anthony

A number of climate skeptic bloggers (myself included) have received this message yesterday. While I had planned to defer announcing this until a reasonable scan could be completed, some other bloggers have let the cat out of the bag. I provide this introductory email sent by “FOIA” without editing or comment. I do have one email, which I found quite humorous, which I will add at the end so that our friends know that this is valid. Update – the first email I posted apparently was part of an earlier release (though I had not seen it, there are a number of duplicates in the all.zip file) so I have added a second one.

Update 2: Additional emails have been added – Anthony

Update 3: Delingpole weighs in.

Climategate: FOIA – The Man Who Saved The World – Telegraph Blogs

I hope one day that FOIA’s true identity can be revealed so that he can be properly applauded and rewarded for his signal service to mankind. He is a true hero, who deserves to go on the same roll of honour as Norman Borlaug, Julian Simon and Steve McIntyre: people who put truth, integrity and the human race first and ideology second. Unlike the misanthropic greenies who do exactly the opposite.

Update4: An email  showing some insight on the beginning of the use of the word “denier” along with some demonstrated coziness with media activists.

Update5: Mike Mann rages and releases the attack dogs Monbiot, Romm, Media Matters and others in response to a perfectly valid and polite inquiry from the Wall Street Journal, suggesting a smear before the reporter even write the story.

Update6: From Junkscience.com, who spotted this exchange: Wigley accuses IPCC and lead authors of ‘dishonest presentations of model results’; Accuses Mann of deception; Mann admits

Update7: From Junkscience.com, Briffa worries that manmade environmental change distorts tree-ring analysis.

===========================================================

Subject:  FOIA 2013: the password

It’s time to tie up loose ends and dispel some of the speculation surrounding the Climategate affair.

Indeed, it’s singular “I” this time.  After certain career developments I can no longer use the papal plural 😉

If this email seems slightly disjointed it’s probably my linguistic background and the problem of trying to address both the wider audience (I expect this will be partially reproduced sooner or later) and the email recipients (whom I haven’t decided yet on).

The “all.7z” password is [redacted]

DO NOT PUBLISH THE PASSWORD.  Quote other parts if you like.

Releasing the encrypted archive was a mere practicality.  I didn’t want to keep the emails lying around.

I prepared CG1 & 2 alone.  Even skimming through all 220.000 emails would have taken several more months of work in an increasingly unfavorable environment.

Dumping them all into the public domain would be the last resort.  Majority of the emails are irrelevant, some of them probably sensitive and socially damaging.

To get the remaining scientifically (or otherwise) relevant emails out,  I ask you to pass this on to any motivated and responsible individuals who could volunteer some time to sift through the material for eventual release.

Filtering\redacting personally sensitive emails doesn’t require special expertise.

I’m not entirely comfortable sending the password around unsolicited, but haven’t got better ideas at the moment.  If you feel this makes you seemingly “complicit” in a way you don’t like, don’t take action.

I don’t expect these remaining emails to hold big surprises.  Yet it’s possible that the most important pieces are among them.  Nobody on the planet has held the archive in plaintext since CG2.

That’s right; no conspiracy, no paid hackers, no Big Oil.  The Republicans didn’t plot this.  USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK.  There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere.

If someone is still wondering why anyone would take these risks, or sees only a breach of privacy here, a few words…

The first glimpses I got behind the scenes did little to  garner my trust in the state of climate science — on the contrary.  I found myself in front of a choice that just might have a global impact.

Briefly put, when I had to balance the interests of my own safety, privacy\career of a few scientists, and the well-being of billions of people living in the coming several decades, the first two weren’t the decisive concern.

It was me or nobody, now or never.  Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future.  The circus was about to arrive in Copenhagen.  Later on it could be too late.

Most would agree that climate science has already directed where humanity puts its capability, innovation, mental and material “might”.  The scale will grow ever grander in the coming decades if things go according to script.  We’re dealing with $trillions and potentially drastic influence on practically everyone.

Wealth of the surrounding society tends to draw the major brushstrokes of a newborn’s future life.  It makes a huge difference whether humanity uses its assets to achieve progress, or whether it strives to stop and reverse it, essentially sacrificing the less fortunate to the climate gods.

We can’t pour trillions in this massive hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor and pretend it’s not away from something and someone else.

If the economy of a region, a country, a city, etc.  deteriorates, what happens among the poorest? Does that usually improve their prospects? No, they will take the hardest hit.  No amount of magical climate thinking can turn this one upside-down.

It’s easy for many of us in the western world to accept a tiny green inconvenience and then wallow in that righteous feeling, surrounded by our “clean” technology and energy that is only slightly more expensive if adequately subsidized.

Those millions and billions already struggling with malnutrition, sickness, violence, illiteracy, etc.  don’t have that luxury.  The price of “climate protection” with its cumulative and collateral effects is bound to destroy and debilitate in great numbers, for decades and generations.

Conversely, a “game-changer” could have a beneficial effect encompassing a similar scope.

If I had a chance to accomplish even a fraction of that, I’d have to try.  I couldn’t morally afford inaction.  Even if I risked everything, would never get personal compensation, and could probably never talk about it with anyone.

I took what I deemed the most defensible course of action, and would do it again (although with slight alterations — trying to publish something truthful on RealClimate was clearly too grandiose of a plan ;-).

Even if I have it all wrong and these scientists had some good reason to mislead us (instead of making a strong case with real data) I think disseminating the truth is still the safest bet by far.

Big thanks to Steve and Anthony and many others.  My contribution would never have happened without your work (whether or not you agree with the views stated).

Oh, one more thing.  I was surprised to learn from a “progressive” blog, corroborated by a renowned “scientist”, that the releases were part of a coordinated campaign receiving vast amounts of secret funding from shady energy industry groups.

I wasn’t aware of the arrangement but warmly welcome their decision to support my project.  For that end I opened a bitcoin address: 1HHQ36qbsgGZWLPmiUjYHxQUPJ6EQXVJFS.

More seriously speaking, I accept, with gratitude, modest donations to support The (other) Cause.  The address can also serve as a digital signature to ward off those identity thefts which are part of climate scientists’ repertoire of tricks these days.

Keep on the good work.  I won’t be able to use this email address for long so if you reply, I can’t guarantee reading or answering.  I will several batches, to anyone I can think of.

Over and out.

Mr. FOIA

===============================================================

Here is one email that I found interesting and humorous, email addresses redacted as a courtesy. Note the bolding:

===============================================================

—–Original Message—–

From: Simon Tett

Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 1:36 PM

To: matcollins@xxx.xx.xxx

Cc: t.osborn@xxx.xx.xxx ; k.briffa@xxx.xx.xxx

Subject: Paleo-Paper

Mat,

The papers looks very good. Hope these comments aren’t too late…. I

don’t think I need to see it again.

Simon

Response to reviewers

I couldn’t read your letter — PS files as attachments seem to get

munged by our firewall/email scanner so I’ve just looked at the paper

to see if I think you’ve dealt with the reviewers comments.

Editors comments:

3) Don’t think you have dealt with the enhanced multi-decadal

variability in the paper.

Reviewer B.

1) Didn’t see a justification for use of tree-rings and not using ice

cores — the obvious one is that ice cores are no good — see Jones et

al, 1998.

2) No justification for regional reconstructions rather than what Mann

   et al did (I don’t think we can say we didn’t do Mann et al because

   we think it is crap!)

3) No justification in the paper for the 9 regions. I think there is

justification in the JGR Briffa paper.

4) That is a good point — I would strongly suspect that the control has

a lot less variance than the observations over the last century —

not the ALL run though!

5) No response to this in the paper. I suspect we are doing better

stats than all the rest though!

Specific Questions/comments

1) That is a good point: How about (though a bit germanic)

“Comparison of simulated northern hemisphere variability with

paleo-temperature …”

Didn’t see that you had dealt with points 5 and 6.

Ditto for point 11.

Figures.

2-4 seem to be much as submitted!

Figs 5-8 — do you want to use colour? It would cost!

Ref C.

Don’t seem to have dealt with point a) and it is quite an important

point as well!

Point b is a reasonable point which I think you go some way to dealing

with. I suggest you stress on page 20 the “exploratory” nature of our

analysis. I am just about to start such a run once I have sorted out

the orbital forcings and how to calculate their radiative forcings.

Point c — not sure what the referee is saying here!

Comments on the MS.

Page 9 “pith” means

Same sentence I think you need to add that they are grouped by

species as well (the rest of the para implies that is what is

done).

Last sentence of penultimate para: stress that decadal to century

scale variability is what we are interested mainly because of its

importance in deciding if recent climate change is anthropogenic or

natural.

First full para on page 13 — didn’t really follow this para.

2nd para, line 11 consider “in comparison” -> “when compared”

Page 14, first para — consider expanding the abbreviations i.e CAS ->

CAS (Central Asia).

Page 20, last para. insert ‘in the four simulations’ after ‘six

“negative spikes”‘.

Section 10 should be Appendix A.

—

Dr Simon Tett  Managing Scientist, Data development and applications.

Met Office   Hadley Centre  Climate Prediction and Research

London Road   Bracknell    Berkshire   RG12 2SY   United Kingdom

Tel: +44 xxxxxxx   Fax: +44 xxxxxx

E-mail: xxxxxxx

====================================================

Second email (added after original post)

====================================================

—–Original Message—–

From: Michael E. Mann

Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:14 AM

To: Edward Cook

Cc: tom crowley ; Michael E. Mann ; esper@xxxxxx ; Jonathan

Overpeck ; Keith Briffa ; mhughes@xxxxxxx ; rbradley@xxxxxx

Subject: Re: hockey stick

<x-flowed>

Hi Ed,

Thanks for your message. I’m forwarding this to Ray and Malcolm to reply to

some of your statements below,

mike

At 10:59 AM 5/2/01 -0400, Edward Cook wrote:

> >Ed,

> >

> >heard some rumor that you are involved in a non-hockey stick

> >reconstruction

> >of northern hemisphere temperatures.  I am very intrigued to learn about

> >this – are these results suggesting the so called Medieval Warm Period

> >may

> >be warmer than the early/mid 20th century?

> >

> >any enlightenment on this would be most appreciated, Tom

> >

> >

> >

> >Thomas J.  Crowley

> >Dept. of Oceanography

> >Texas A&M University

> >College Station, TX  77843-3146

> >979-xxxxxxx

> >979-xxxxxxx

> >979-xxxxxxx

>

>Hi Tom,

>

>As rumors often are, the one you heard is not entirely accurate. So, I will

>take some time here to explain for you, Mike, and others exactly what was

>done and what the motivation was, in an effort to hopefully avoid any

>misunderstanding. I especially want to avoid any suggestion that this work

>was being done to specifically counter or refute the “hockey stick”.

>However, it does suggest (as do other results from your EBM, Peck’s work,

>the borehole data, and Briffa and Jones large-scale proxy estimates) that

>there are unresolved (I think) inconsistencies in the low-frequency aspects

>of the hockey stick series compared to other results. So, any comparisons

>with the hockey stick were made with that spirit in mind.

>

>What Jan Esper and I are working on (mostly Jan with me as second author)

>is a paper that was in response to Broecker’s Science Perspectives piece on

>the Medieval Warm Period. Specifically, we took strong exception to his

>claim that tree rings are incapable of preserving century time scale

>temperature variability. Of course, if Broecker had read the literature, he

>would have known that what he claimed was inaccurate. Be that as it may,

>Jan had been working on a project, as part of his post-doc here, to look at

>large-scale, low-frequency patterns of tree growth and climate in long

>tree-ring records provided to him by Fritz Schweingruber. With the addition

>of a couple of sites from foxtail pine in California, Jan amassed a

>collection of 14 tree-ring sites scattered somewhat uniformly over the

>30-70 degree NH latitude band, with most extending back 1000-1200 years.

>All of the sites are from temperature-sensitive locations (i.e. high

>elevation or high northern latitude. It is, as far as I know, the largest,

>longest, and most spatially representative set of such

>temperature-sensitive tree-ring data yet put together for the NH

>extra-tropics.

>

>In order to preserve maximum low-frequency variance, Jan used the Regional

>Curve Standardization (RCS) method, used previously by Briffa and myself

>with great success. Only here, Jan chose to do things in a somewhat radical

>fashion. Since the replication at each site was generally insufficient to

>produce a robust RCS chronology back to, say, AD 1000, Jan pooled all of

>the original measurement series into 2 classes of growth trends: non-linear

>(~700 ring-width series) and linear (~500 ring-width series). He than

>performed independent RCS on the each of the pooled sets and produced 2 RCS

>chronologies with remarkably similar multi-decadal and centennial

>low-frequency characteristics. These chronologies are not good at

>preserving high-frquency climate information because of the scattering of

>sites and the mix of different species, but the low-frequency patterns are

>probably reflecting the same long-term changes in temperature. Jan than

>averaged the 2 RCS chronologies together to produce a single chronology

>extending back to AD 800. It has a very well defined Medieval Warm Period –

>Little Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, punctuated by strong decadal

>fluctuations of inferred cold that correspond well with known histories of

>neo-glacial advance in some parts of the NH. The punctuations also appear,

>in some cases, to be related to known major volcanic eruptions.

>

>Jan originally only wanted to show this NH extra-tropical RCS chronology in

>a form scaled to millimeters of growth to show how forest productivity and

>carbon sequestration may be modified by climate variability and change over

>relatively long time scales. However, I encouraged him to compare his

>series with NH instrumental temperature data and the proxy estimates

>produced by Jones, Briffa, and Mann in order bolster the claim that his

>unorthodox method of pooling the tree-ring data was producing a record that

>was indeed related to temperatures in some sense. This he did by linearly

>rescaling his RCS chronology from mm of growth to temperature anomalies. In

>so doing, Jan demonstrated that his series, on inter-decadal time scales

>only, was well correlated to the annual NH instrumental record. This result

>agreed extremely well with those of Jones and Briffa. Of course, some of

>the same data were used by them, but probably not more than 40 percent

>(Briffa in particular), so the comparison is based on mostly, but not

>fully, independent data. The similarity indicated that Jan’s approach was

>valid for producing a useful reconstruction of multi-decadal temperature

>variability (probably weighted towards the warm-season months, but it is

>impossible to know by how much) over a larger region of the NH

>extra-tropics than that produced before by Jones and Briffa. It also

>revealed somewhat more intense cooling in the Little Ice Age that is more

>consistent with what the borehole temperatures indicate back to AD 1600.

>This result also bolsters the argument for a reasonably large-scale

>Medieval Warm Period that may not be as warm as the late 20th century, but

>is of much(?) greater significance than that produced previously.

>

>Of course, Jan also had to compare his record with the hockey stick since

>that is the most prominent and oft-cited record of NH temperatures covering

>the past 1000 years. The results were consistent with the differences shown

>by others, mainly in the century-scale of variability. Again, the Esper

>series shows a very strong, even canonical, Medieval Warm Period – Little

>Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, which is largely missing from the

>hockey stick. Yet the two series agree reasonably well on inter-decadal

>timescales, even though they may not be 1:1 expressions of the same

>temperature window (i.e. annual vs. warm-season weighted). However, the

>tree-ring series used in the hockey stick are warm-season weighted as well,

>so the difference between “annual” and “warm-season weighted” is probably

>not as large as it might seem, especially before the period of instrumental

>data (e.g. pre-1700) in the hockey stick. So, they both share a significant

>degree of common interdecal temperature information (and some, but not

>much, data), but do not co-vary well on century timescales. Again, this has

>all been shown before by others using different temperature

>reconstructions, but Jan’s result is probably the most comprehensive

>expression (I believe) of extra-tropical NH temperatures back to AD 800 on

>multi-decadal and century time scales.

>

>Now back to the Broecker perspectives piece. I felt compelled to refute

>Broecker’s erroneous claim that tree rings could not preserve long-term

>temperature information. So, I organized a “Special Wally Seminar” in which

>I introduced the topic to him and the packed audience using Samuel

>Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus” statement in the form of “Jan Esper and

>I refute Broecker thus”. Jan than presented, in a very detailed and well

>espressed fashion, his story and Broecker became an instant convert. In

>other words, Wally now believes that long tree-ring records, when properly

>selected and processed, can preserve low-frequency temperature variability

>on centennial time scales. Others in the audience came away with the same

>understanding, one that we dendrochronologists always knew to be the case.

>This was the entire purpose of Jan’s work and the presentation of it to

>Wally and others. Wally had expressed some doubts about the hockey stick

>previously to me and did so again in his perspectives article. So, Jan’s

>presentation strongly re-enforced Wally’s opinion about the hockey stick,

>which he has expressed to others including several who attended a

>subsequent NOAA meeting at Lamont. I have no control over what Wally says

>and only hope that we can work together to reconcile, in a professional,

>friendly manner, the differences between the hockey stick and other proxy

>temperature records covering the past 1000 years. This I would like to do.

>

>I do think that the Medieval Warm Period was a far more significant event

>than has been recognized previously, as much because the high-resolution

>data to evaluate it had not been available before. That is much less so the

>case now. It is even showing up strongly now in long SH tree-ring series.

>However, there is still the question of how strong this event was in the

>tropics. I maintain that we do not have the proxies to tell us that now.

>The tropical ice core data are very difficult to interpret as temperature

>proxies (far worse than tree rings for sure and maybe even unrelated to

>temperatures in any simple linear sense as is often assumed), so I do not

>believe that they can be used alone as records to test for the existence of

>a Medieval Warm Period in the tropics. That being the case, there are

>really no other high-resolution records from the tropics to use, and the

>teleconnections between long extra-tropical proxies and the tropics are, I

>believe, far too tenuous and probably unstable to use to sort out this

>issue.

>

>So, at this stage I would argue that the Medieval Warm Period was probably

>a global extra-tropical event, at the very least, with warmth that was

>persistent and probably comparable to much of what we have experienced in

>the 20th century. However, I would not claim (and nor would Jan) that it

>exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century. We simply do not have the

>precision or the proxy replication to say that yet. This being said, I do

>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event

>to be grossly premature and probably wrong. Kind of like Mark Twain’s

>commment that accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated. If, as some

>people believe, a degree of symmetry in climate exists between the

>hemispheres, which would appear to arise from the tropics, then the

>existence of a Medieval Warm Period in the extra-tropics of the NH and SH

>argues for its existence in the tropics as well. Only time and an enlarged

>suite of proxies that extend into the tropics will tell if this is true.

>

>I hope that what I have written clarifies the rumor and expresses my views

>more completely and accurately.

>

>Cheers,

>

>Ed

>

>==================================

>Dr. Edward R. Cook

>Doherty Senior Scholar

>Tree-Ring Laboratory

>Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

>Palisades, New York  10964  USA

>Phone:  1-845-xxxxxx

>Fax:    1-845-xxxxxx

>Email:  drdendro@xxxxxxx

>==================================

_______________________________________________________________________

Professor Michael E. Mann

Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22903

_______________________________________________________________________

e-mail: mann@xxxxxxx  Phone: (804) 924-7770   FAX: (804) 982-2137

http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

—–Original Message—–

From: Michael E. Mann

Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:14 AM

To: Edward Cook

Cc: tom crowley ; Michael E. Mann ; esper@xxxxxxxx ; Jonathan

Overpeck ; Keith Briffa ; mhughes@xxxxxx ; rbradley@xxxxxxx

Subject: Re: hockey stick

<x-flowed>

Hi Ed,

Thanks for your message. I’m forwarding this to Ray and Malcolm to reply to

some of your statements below,

mike

At 10:59 AM 5/2/01 -0400, Edward Cook wrote:

> >Ed,

> >

> >heard some rumor that you are involved in a non-hockey stick

> >reconstruction

> >of northern hemisphere temperatures.  I am very intrigued to learn about

> >this – are these results suggesting the so called Medieval Warm Period

> >may

> >be warmer than the early/mid 20th century?

> >

> >any enlightenment on this would be most appreciated, Tom

> >

> >

> >

> >Thomas J.  Crowley

> >Dept. of Oceanography

> >Texas A&M University

> >College Station, TX  77843-3146

> >979-xxxxx

> >979-xxxxx

> >979-xxxxx

>

>Hi Tom,

>

>As rumors often are, the one you heard is not entirely accurate. So, I will

>take some time here to explain for you, Mike, and others exactly what was

>done and what the motivation was, in an effort to hopefully avoid any

>misunderstanding. I especially want to avoid any suggestion that this work

>was being done to specifically counter or refute the “hockey stick”.

>However, it does suggest (as do other results from your EBM, Peck’s work,

>the borehole data, and Briffa and Jones large-scale proxy estimates) that

>there are unresolved (I think) inconsistencies in the low-frequency aspects

>of the hockey stick series compared to other results. So, any comparisons

>with the hockey stick were made with that spirit in mind.

>

>What Jan Esper and I are working on (mostly Jan with me as second author)

>is a paper that was in response to Broecker’s Science Perspectives piece on

>the Medieval Warm Period. Specifically, we took strong exception to his

>claim that tree rings are incapable of preserving century time scale

>temperature variability. Of course, if Broecker had read the literature, he

>would have known that what he claimed was inaccurate. Be that as it may,

>Jan had been working on a project, as part of his post-doc here, to look at

>large-scale, low-frequency patterns of tree growth and climate in long

>tree-ring records provided to him by Fritz Schweingruber. With the addition

>of a couple of sites from foxtail pine in California, Jan amassed a

>collection of 14 tree-ring sites scattered somewhat uniformly over the

>30-70 degree NH latitude band, with most extending back 1000-1200 years.

>All of the sites are from temperature-sensitive locations (i.e. high

>elevation or high northern latitude. It is, as far as I know, the largest,

>longest, and most spatially representative set of such

>temperature-sensitive tree-ring data yet put together for the NH

>extra-tropics.

>

>In order to preserve maximum low-frequency variance, Jan used the Regional

>Curve Standardization (RCS) method, used previously by Briffa and myself

>with great success. Only here, Jan chose to do things in a somewhat radical

>fashion. Since the replication at each site was generally insufficient to

>produce a robust RCS chronology back to, say, AD 1000, Jan pooled all of

>the original measurement series into 2 classes of growth trends: non-linear

>(~700 ring-width series) and linear (~500 ring-width series). He than

>performed independent RCS on the each of the pooled sets and produced 2 RCS

>chronologies with remarkably similar multi-decadal and centennial

>low-frequency characteristics. These chronologies are not good at

>preserving high-frquency climate information because of the scattering of

>sites and the mix of different species, but the low-frequency patterns are

>probably reflecting the same long-term changes in temperature. Jan than

>averaged the 2 RCS chronologies together to produce a single chronology

>extending back to AD 800. It has a very well defined Medieval Warm Period –

>Little Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, punctuated by strong decadal

>fluctuations of inferred cold that correspond well with known histories of

>neo-glacial advance in some parts of the NH. The punctuations also appear,

>in some cases, to be related to known major volcanic eruptions.

>

>Jan originally only wanted to show this NH extra-tropical RCS chronology in

>a form scaled to millimeters of growth to show how forest productivity and

>carbon sequestration may be modified by climate variability and change over

>relatively long time scales. However, I encouraged him to compare his

>series with NH instrumental temperature data and the proxy estimates

>produced by Jones, Briffa, and Mann in order bolster the claim that his

>unorthodox method of pooling the tree-ring data was producing a record that

>was indeed related to temperatures in some sense. This he did by linearly

>rescaling his RCS chronology from mm of growth to temperature anomalies. In

>so doing, Jan demonstrated that his series, on inter-decadal time scales

>only, was well correlated to the annual NH instrumental record. This result

>agreed extremely well with those of Jones and Briffa. Of course, some of

>the same data were used by them, but probably not more than 40 percent

>(Briffa in particular), so the comparison is based on mostly, but not

>fully, independent data. The similarity indicated that Jan’s approach was

>valid for producing a useful reconstruction of multi-decadal temperature

>variability (probably weighted towards the warm-season months, but it is

>impossible to know by how much) over a larger region of the NH

>extra-tropics than that produced before by Jones and Briffa. It also

>revealed somewhat more intense cooling in the Little Ice Age that is more

>consistent with what the borehole temperatures indicate back to AD 1600.

>This result also bolsters the argument for a reasonably large-scale

>Medieval Warm Period that may not be as warm as the late 20th century, but

>is of much(?) greater significance than that produced previously.

>

>Of course, Jan also had to compare his record with the hockey stick since

>that is the most prominent and oft-cited record of NH temperatures covering

>the past 1000 years. The results were consistent with the differences shown

>by others, mainly in the century-scale of variability. Again, the Esper

>series shows a very strong, even canonical, Medieval Warm Period – Little

>Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, which is largely missing from the

>hockey stick. Yet the two series agree reasonably well on inter-decadal

>timescales, even though they may not be 1:1 expressions of the same

>temperature window (i.e. annual vs. warm-season weighted). However, the

>tree-ring series used in the hockey stick are warm-season weighted as well,

>so the difference between “annual” and “warm-season weighted” is probably

>not as large as it might seem, especially before the period of instrumental

>data (e.g. pre-1700) in the hockey stick. So, they both share a significant

>degree of common interdecal temperature information (and some, but not

>much, data), but do not co-vary well on century timescales. Again, this has

>all been shown before by others using different temperature

>reconstructions, but Jan’s result is probably the most comprehensive

>expression (I believe) of extra-tropical NH temperatures back to AD 800 on

>multi-decadal and century time scales.

>

>Now back to the Broecker perspectives piece. I felt compelled to refute

>Broecker’s erroneous claim that tree rings could not preserve long-term

>temperature information. So, I organized a “Special Wally Seminar” in which

>I introduced the topic to him and the packed audience using Samuel

>Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus” statement in the form of “Jan Esper and

>I refute Broecker thus”. Jan than presented, in a very detailed and well

>espressed fashion, his story and Broecker became an instant convert. In

>other words, Wally now believes that long tree-ring records, when properly

>selected and processed, can preserve low-frequency temperature variability

>on centennial time scales. Others in the audience came away with the same

>understanding, one that we dendrochronologists always knew to be the case.

>This was the entire purpose of Jan’s work and the presentation of it to

>Wally and others. Wally had expressed some doubts about the hockey stick

>previously to me and did so again in his perspectives article. So, Jan’s

>presentation strongly re-enforced Wally’s opinion about the hockey stick,

>which he has expressed to others including several who attended a

>subsequent NOAA meeting at Lamont. I have no control over what Wally says

>and only hope that we can work together to reconcile, in a professional,

>friendly manner, the differences between the hockey stick and other proxy

>temperature records covering the past 1000 years. This I would like to do.

>

>I do think that the Medieval Warm Period was a far more significant event

>than has been recognized previously, as much because the high-resolution

>data to evaluate it had not been available before. That is much less so the

>case now. It is even showing up strongly now in long SH tree-ring series.

>However, there is still the question of how strong this event was in the

>tropics. I maintain that we do not have the proxies to tell us that now.

>The tropical ice core data are very difficult to interpret as temperature

>proxies (far worse than tree rings for sure and maybe even unrelated to

>temperatures in any simple linear sense as is often assumed), so I do not

>believe that they can be used alone as records to test for the existence of

>a Medieval Warm Period in the tropics. That being the case, there are

>really no other high-resolution records from the tropics to use, and the

>teleconnections between long extra-tropical proxies and the tropics are, I

>believe, far too tenuous and probably unstable to use to sort out this

>issue.

>

>So, at this stage I would argue that the Medieval Warm Period was probably

>a global extra-tropical event, at the very least, with warmth that was

>persistent and probably comparable to much of what we have experienced in

>the 20th century. However, I would not claim (and nor would Jan) that it

>exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century. We simply do not have the

>precision or the proxy replication to say that yet. This being said, I do

>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event

>to be grossly premature and probably wrong. Kind of like Mark Twain’s

>commment that accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated. If, as some

>people believe, a degree of symmetry in climate exists between the

>hemispheres, which would appear to arise from the tropics, then the

>existence of a Medieval Warm Period in the extra-tropics of the NH and SH

>argues for its existence in the tropics as well. Only time and an enlarged

>suite of proxies that extend into the tropics will tell if this is true.

>

>I hope that what I have written clarifies the rumor and expresses my views

>more completely and accurately.

>

>Cheers,

>

>Ed

>

>==================================

>Dr. Edward R. Cook

>Doherty Senior Scholar

>Tree-Ring Laboratory

>Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

>Palisades, New York  10964  USA

>Phone:  1-845-xxxxx

>Fax:    1-845-xxxxx

>Email:  drdendro@xxxxx.xxxxx.xxx

>==================================

_______________________________________________________________________

Professor Michael E. Mann

Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22903

_______________________________________________________________________

e-mail: mann@virginia.edu   Phone: (804) 924-7770   FAX: (804) 982-2137

http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml

=========================================================================

Here is an email from Tom Wigley on Naomi Oreskes. Bold mine. (h/t to Junkscience.com)

=========================================================================

date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:16:40 -0700

from: Tom Wigley

subject: Re: [Fwd: Your Submission]

to: Phil Jones

Phil,

This is weird. I used Web of Knowledge, “create citation report”, and

added 1999 thru 2009 numbers. Can’t do you becoz of the too many PDJs

problem.

Here are 3 results …

Kevin Trenberth, 9049

Me, 5523

Ben, 2407

The max on their list has only 3365 cites over this period.

Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless.

A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.

Tom.

==============================================================

UPDATE 4:

Barry Woods writes via email:

The social network is of interest..

In the earlier emails, when Mann wanted to contact Monbiot, he got Monbiot’s email address from George Marshall

(Marshall is a veteran greenpeace campaigner, founder of Rising Tide, COIN –) and creator of a – Deniers Hall of Shame.. and very active at grass roots

Perhaps scientists a bit too close to activists, picking up their thinking about ‘deniers’  and fossil fuel companies ? Marshall had been battling Chevron, in the 90’s  about rainforest destruction (Rainforest Foundation)

And of course Monbiot – published a Deniers photo Hall of Shame in the Guardian (including Booker) and ‘fights’ Booker on climate change

———————–

cc: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.xxxx>, k.briffa@xxxxxxx

date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:29:39 -0400

from: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxx>

subject: Re: More of the same from Booker

to: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxx>

Hi Phil,

Might want to see if George Monbiot wants to *review* the book.

That would be both amusing and satisfying,

mike

On Oct 26, 2009, at 5:21 AM, Phil Jones wrote:

Gavin, Mike,

[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html

Apparently he has a book out

[2]http://www.amazon.com/Real-Global-Warming-Disaster-Scientific/dp/1441110526

———————–

Remember the earlier email –

http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1377

– that when Mann wanted to get hold of Monbiot, about Durkin and Great Global Warming Scandal..

Mann got Monbiots email address from none other than George Marshall (Rising Tide – COIN) Some scientists perhaps been influenced a bit too much by activist rhetoric,.. and  picked up the rhetoric and language of activists/environmentalistsie

I.e. when did Mann start using the phrase ‘climate denier’?

George Marshall and Mark Lynas writing about it in 2003, – New Statesman – including a whose who of climate change deniers – (lindzen one of them)

Marshall had a Deniers Hall of Shame in 2001-2002 (Rising Tide) – Lindzen included

And if you look at Wayback machine – Lynas and Marshall were very early entries to Realclimate’s blog roll.

Barry

===============================================================

UPDATE 5:

From Junkscience.com

In response to a polite media inquiry from Wall Street journal editorial writer Anne Jolis, Mann rages, in part, “Misrepresenting the work of scientists is a serious offense” — and then cc’s his response to Media Matters, Joe Romm and other allies in the warmest-media industrial complex.

The e-mail exchange is below.

###

from: Michael Mann

subject: Re: From the Wall Street Journal:

to: Anne Jolis , Joe Romm , Media Matters Erikka Knuti , DarkSydOTheMoon@aol.com,

Dan Vergano , Bud Ward , george@monbiot.info, AJ Walzer , “Paul D. Thacker”, Chris Mooney

Ms. Jolis,

I’ve taken the liberty of copying this exchange to a few others who might be

interested in it, within the broader context of issues related to the history of biased

reporting on climate change at the Wall Street Journal Europe,

Yours,

Mike Mann

On Oct 23, 2009, at 12:42 PM, Michael Mann wrote:

Ms. Jolis,

I am traveling through this weekend and have only brief email access, so can

only respond w/ a very short email to your inquiry. I’m sad to report that the tone of your questions suggests a highly distorted, contrarian-driven view of the entirety of our science. The premise of essentially everyone of your questions is wrong, and is contradicted by assessments such as the IPCC report, reports by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, etc. The National Academy of Science report (more info below) reported in 2006 that “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence…”. The conclusions in the most recent 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment report have been significantly strengthened relative to what was originally concluded in our work from the 1990s or in the IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report, something that of course should have been expected given the numerous additional studies that have since been

done that all point in the same direction. The conclusion that large-scale

recent warmth likely exceeds the range seen in past centuries has been extended from the

past 1000 years in the TAR, to the past 1300 years in the current report, and the confidence in this conclusion has been upped from likely in the Third Assessment Report to very likely in the current report for the past half millennium.

Since then, the conclusions have been further strengthened by other work,

including work by us. Please see e.g. the reporting by the BBC:

[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8236797.stm

[2]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7592575.stm

You don’t seem to be aware of the fact that our original “Hockey Stick”

reconstruction didn’t even use the “Yamal” data. It seems you have uncritically accepted

nearly every specious contrarian claim and innuendo against me, my colleagues, and the

science of climate change itself. Furthermore, I doubt that the various authors you cite

as critics, such as Pollack and Smerdon, would in any way agree w/ your assessment of

this work.

Misrepresenting the work of scientists is a serious offense, and would work

to further besmirch the reputation of the Wall Street Journal, which is strongly been

called into question in the past with regard to the treatment of climate change.

I’ve copied my response to a number of others who might wish to comment

further, as I will be unavailable to speak with you until next week.

I’ve pasted below various summaries by mainstream news venues which reported

a couple years ago that the National Academy of Sciences, in the words of Nature “Affirmed The Hockey Stick” below this message.

In addition, here are a few links you might want to read to better

familiarize yourself with what the science actually states with regard to the issues raised in

your inquiry below:

[3]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

[4]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourthassessment-

summary

-for-policy-makers/

[5]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/06/national-academiessynthesis-

repor

t/

[6]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/hockey-sticks-round-

27/

[7]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/new-analysisreproduces-

graph-of-l

ate-20th-century-temperature-rise/

[8]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/02/dummies-guide-tothe-

latest-hockey

-stick-controversy/

[9]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/a-new-take-on-anold-

millennium/

Finally, let me suggest, under the assumption that your intent is indeed to

report the reality of our current scientific understanding, rather than contrarian

politically-motivated spin, that any legitimate journalistic inquiry into

the current state of the science, and the extent to which uncertainties and controversy

have been overstated and misrepresented in the public discourse, would probably choose

to focus on the issues raised here:

[10]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/climate-cover-up-abrief-

review/

Yours,

Mike Mann

___________________NEWS CLIPS ON ACADEMY REPORT_____________________

from BBC (6/23/06 “Backing for ‘Hockey Stick’ graph”)

The Earth was hotter in the late 20th Century than it had been in the last

400 or possibly 1,000 years, a report requested by the US Congress concludes. It backs some of the key findings of the original study that gave rise to the iconic “hockey stick”

graph.) from New York Times (Andy Revkin, 6/22/06 “Science Panel Packs Study on

Warming Climate”):

At a news conference at the headquarters of the National Academies, several

members of the panel reviewing the study said they saw no sign that its authors had

intentionally chosen data sets or methods to get a desired result.

“I saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation,” said one member, Peter

Bloomfield, a statistics professor at [11]North Carolina State University. He added that

his impression was the study was “an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure.

Boston Globe (Beth Daley, 6/22/06 “Report backs global warming claims”):

Our conclusion is that this recent period of warming is likely the warmest in

a (millennium), said John Wallace, one of the 12 members on the panel and

professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington.

Los Angeles Times (Thomas H. Maugh II and Karen Kaplan, “U.S. Panel Backs

Data on Global Warming”):

After a comprehensive review of climate change data, the nation’s preeminent

scientific body found that average temperatures on Earth had risen by about 1 degree

over the last century, a development that “is unprecedented for the last 400 years and

potentially the last several millennia.”

and

The panel affirmed that proxy measurements made over the last 150 years

correlated well with actual measurements during that period, lending credence to the proxy data for earlier times. It concluded that, “with a high level of confidence,” global temperatures during the last century were higher than at any time since 1600.

Although the report did not place numerical values on that confidence level,

committee member and statistician Peter Bloomfield of North Carolina State University

said the panel was about 95% sure of the conclusion.

The committee supported Mann’s other conclusions, but said they were not as

definitive. For example, the report said the panel was “less confident” that the 20th century was the warmest century since 1000, largely because of the scarcity of data from

before 1600. Bloomfield said the committee was about 67% confident of the validity of that

finding the same degree of confidence Mann and his colleagues had placed in their initial

report.

Associated Press (syndicate with 100s of newspapers accross the U.S. (John

Heilprin, 6/22/06 “The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, perhaps

even longer”):

The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes

research from the late 1990s was “likely” to be true, said John “Mike” Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the ’90s research “are very close to being right” and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

and

Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the

20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a “Little Ice Age” from about 1500 to 1850.

Washington Post (Juliet Eilperin, 6/23/06 “Study Confirms Past Few Decades

Warmest on Record”):

Panel member Kurt M. Cuffey, a geography professor at the University of

California at Berkeley, said at a news briefing that the report “essentially validated” the

conclusions Mann reported in 1998 and 1999 using temperature records. The panel also

estimated there is a roughly 67 percent chance that Mann is right in saying the past 25 years were the warmest in a 1,000 years.

Nature (Geoff Brumfield, 6/28/06 “Academy affirms hockey-stick graph”)

“We roughly agree with the substance of their findings,” says Gerald North,

the committee’s chair and a climate scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station. In particular, he says, the committee has a “high level of confidence” that the second half of the twentieth century was warmer than any other period in the past four centuries. But, he adds, claims for the earlier period covered by the study, from AD 900 to 1600, are less

certain. This earlier period is particularly important because global-warming sceptics

claim that the current warming trend is a rebound from a ‘little ice age’ around 1600.

Overall, the committee thought the temperature reconstructions from that era had only a

two-to-one chance of being right.

and

says Peter Bloomfield, a statistician at North Carolina State University in

Raleigh, who was involved in the latest report. “This study was the first of its kind, and

they had to make choices at various stages about how the data were processed,” he says,

adding that he “would not be embarrassed” to have been involved in the work.

New Scientist (Roxanne Khamsi, 6/23/06, “US report backs study on global

warming”):

It was really the first analysis of its type, panel member Kurt Cuffey of the

University of California, Berkeley, US, said at a news conference on Thursday.

He added that it was the first time anyone has done such a large-scale and

continual analysis of temperature over time. So its not surprising that they could have

probably done some detailed aspects of it better.

But it was a remarkable contribution and gave birth to a debate thats

ongoing, thats teaching us a lot about how climate has changed.

Science (Richard Kerr, June 30, 2006, “Yes, Its been Getting Warmer in Here

Since the CO2 Begain to Rise”): In addition, none of the three committee members at the press briefing– North, Bloomfield, and paleoclimatologist Kurt Cuffey of the University of California, Berkeley- -had found any hint of scientific impropriety. “I certainly did not see anything inappropriate,” said North. “Maybe things could have been done better, but after all, it was the first analysis of its kind.”

–

On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Jolis, Anne wrote:

Dear Dr. Mann,

My name is Anne Jolis, and I’m with the Wall Street Journal Europe, based in

London. I’m working on a piece about climate change, and specifically the growing

questions that people outside the field have about the methods and processes used by climatologists and other climate-change scientists – and, necessarily, about the conclusions that result. The idea came from the recent controversy that has arisen once again over Steve McIntyre, the publication of the full Yamal data used in Keith Briffa’s work. This of course raises questions among climate scientistis, and observers, about whether the socalled “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures , as produced by Dr. Briffa and originally by yourself, was drawn from narrow data which, and then when broadened to include a wider range of available dendroclimatological data, seems to show no important spike in global temperatures in the last 100 year .

I realize this is not exactly the silverbullet to anthropogenic global warming that some would like to read into it, but it seems to me that it does underscore some of the issues in climate science. Specifically, the publication of the data, and the earlier controversy over your work, seems to illustrate that best practices and reliable methods of data collection remain far from established, and that much of what is presented as scientific fact is really more of a value judgment based on select data. Would you agree?

I’d love to get some insight from you for my article. I’ll be filing this

weekend, but I can call you any time it’s convenient for you on Friday – just let me know

the best time and number. Please note that if we do speak on the phone, I will email you

with any quotes or paraphrases that I would like to attribute to you, before publication, so

as to secure your approval and confirm the accuracy of what I’m attributing to you.

Additionally, if you’d like to correspond via email, that’s fine too. I’ve listed below some

of the questions and assumptions I’m working on – if, in lieu of a phone call, you’d

like to answer and/or respond to these, as well as share any other thoughts you have

on these issues, I’d be most grateful. Feel welcome to reply at length!

I thank you in advance for your time and attention, and look forward to any of your comments.

All the best,

Anne Jolis

Mobile: +44 xxxxxx

– Given that methods in climate science are still being refined, do you

agree with policy makers’ and advocates’ use of data such as your own? Do you feel it is

accurately represented to laymans, and that the inherent uncertainties present in the

data are appropriately underscored? As a citizen, do you feel there is enough

certainty in the conclusions of, for instance, the latest IPCC report, to introduce new

economic regulations? Why or why not?

-What methods do you feel are the most accurate for predicting future climate

change, for evaluatinag the causes of climate change and for predicting whether or what

man can do to try to control or mitigate climate change in the future in the future? Why

do you feel these methods are the most accurate? Do you feel they’re given enough weight

in the current debate?

-What is your opinion of the value of Steve McIntyre’s work? Clearly he is

not a professional scientist, but do you feel there is nonetheless a place for his

“auditing” in the climate science community? Why or why not?

-Do you think McIntyre’s work and findings are likely to change the way

leading climate scientists operate? Do you think his recent campaign to get Dr. Keith Briffa

to publish the Yamal data he used is likely to make climate scientists more forthcoming

with their data? Do you think his work will make scientists, policymakers and advocates

any more exacting about the uncertainties in their procedures, methods and conclusions

when they present scientific data?

-How would you respond to the critique that, as a key part of the review

processes of publications in the field of climate science, as something of a “gatekeeper,”

you have rejected and otherwise sought to suppress work that contradicted your work.

Is this fair?

Why or why not? How would you characterize your selection process for work

that is worthy

of publication?

-Do you stand by your original “hockey stick” graf, even after the

publication of borehole

data from Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon that seems to contradict your

conclusions? Or

work published in 2005 by Hans von Storch that seems to indicate that the

predictive

capabilities of the method you used in your original “hockey stick” would not

be able to

predict current temperatures?

–

Michael E. Mann

Professor

Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) xxxxx

503 Walker Building FAX: (814) xxxxx

The Pennsylvania State University email: [12]mann@psu.edu

University Park, PA 16802-5013

website: [13]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html

“Dire Predictions” book site:

[14]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html

–

Update6:

Wigley accuses IPCC and lead authors of ‘dishonest presentations of model results’; Accuses Mann of deception; Mann admits