From U of E Anglia UK
Climatic Research Unit update - November 24, 3.30pm
The University of East Anglia has released statements from Prof Trevor
Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Prof Phil Jones, head of the
Climatic Research Unit, and from CRU. Statement from Professor Trevor
Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research
The publication of a selection of the emails and data stolen from the
Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has led to some questioning of the climate
science research published by CRU and others. There is nothing in the
stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU,
and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are
not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.
CRUs peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed
to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being
strongly influenced by human activity. The interactions of the atmosphere,
oceans, land, and ice mean that the strongly-increasing concentrations of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere do not produce a uniform year-on-year
increase in global temperature. On time-scales of 5-10 years, however,
there is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth will continue to
warm, with attendant changes in the climate, for the foreseeable future.
It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down,
through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the
most dangerous impacts of climate change. Respected international research
groups, using other data sets, have come to the same conclusion.
The University of East Anglia and CRU are committed to scientific
integrity, open debate and enhancing understanding. This includes a
commitment to the international peer-review system upon which progress in
science relies. It is this tried and tested system which has underpinned
the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is
through that process that we can engage in respectful and informed debate
with scientists whose analyses appear not to be consistent with the
current overwhelming consensus on climate change
The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a
sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been
designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent
action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to,
climate change. We are committed to furthering this debate despite being
faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our
security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more
extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant
ways to the publication of personal information.
There has been understandable interest in the progress and outcome of the
numerous requests under information legislation for large numbers of the
data series held by CRU. The University takes its responsibilities under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations
2004, and the Data Protection Act 1998 very seriously and has, in all
cases, handled and responded to requests in accordance with its
obligations under each particular piece of legislation. Where appropriate,
we have consulted with the Information Commissioners Office and have
followed their advice.
In relation to the specific requests at issue here, we have handled and
responded to each request in a consistent manner in compliance with the
appropriate legislation. No record has been deleted, altered, or otherwise
dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing the disclosure of
all, or any part, of the requested information. Where information has not
been disclosed, we have done so in accordance with the provisions of the
relevant legislation and have so informed the requester.
The Climatic Research Unit holds many data series, provided to the Unit
over a period of several decades, from a number of nationally-funded
institutions and other research organisations around the world, with
specific agreements made over restrictions in the dissemination of those
original data. All of these individual series have been used in CRUs
analyses. It is a time-consuming process to attempt to gain approval from
these organisations to release the data. Since some of them were provided
decades ago, it has sometimes been necessary to track down the successors
of the original organisations. It is clearly in the public interest that
these data are released once we have succeeded in gaining the approval of
collaborators. Some who have requested the data will have been aware of
the scale of the exercise we have had to undertake. Much of these data are
already available from the websites of the Global Historical Climate Data
Network and the Goddard Institute for Space Science.
Given the degree to which we collaborate with other organisations around
the world, there is also an understandable interest in the computer
security systems we have in place in CRU and UEA. Although we were
confident that our systems were appropriate, experience has shown that
determined and skilled people, who are prepared to engage in criminal
activity, can sometimes hack into apparently secure systems.
Highly-protected government organisations around the world have also
learned this to their cost.
We have, therefore, decided to conduct an independent review, which will
address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a
deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues
which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed.
Statement from Professor Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research Unit,
University of East Anglia.
In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being
overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to
live on this planet.
One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence
has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted
attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the
run-up to the Copenhagen talks.
That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only
temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier
retreat and less Arctic sea ice.
Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely
independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National
Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were
to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for
themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.
We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release the
temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological services around
the world via a large network of weather stations. This information is not
ours to give without the permission of the meteorological services
involved. We have responded to these Freedom of Information requests
appropriately and with the knowledge and guidance of the Information
Commissioner.
We have stated that we hope to gain permission from each of these services
to publish their data in the future and we are in the process of doing so.
My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read
well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were
clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms
frequently used between close colleagues.
We are, and have always been, scrupulous in ensuring that our science
publications are robust and honest.
CRU statement
Recently thousands of files and emails illegally obtained from a research
server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been posted on various
sites on the web. The emails relate to messages received or sent by the
Climatic Research Unit (CRU) over the period 1996-2009.
A selection of these emails have been taken out of context and
misinterpreted as evidence that CRU has manipulated climate data to
present an unrealistic picture of global warming.
This conclusion is entirely unfounded and the evidence from CRU research
is entirely consistent with independent evidence assembled by various
research groups around the world.
There is excellent agreement on the course of temperature change since
1881 between the data set that we contribute to (HadCRUT3) and two other,
independent analyses of worldwide temperature measurements. There are no
statistically significant differences between the warming trends in the
three series since the start of the 20th century. The three independent
global temperature data series have been assembled by:
CRU and the Met Office Hadley Centre (HadCRUT3) in the UK.
The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Asheville, NC, USA.
The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), part of the National
Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) in New York.
The warming shown by the HadCRUT3 series between the averages of the two
periods (1850-99 and 2001-2005) was 0.760.19C, and this is corroborated by
the other two data sets.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 4th Assessment
Report (AR4) published in 2007 concluded that the warming of the climate
system was unequivocal. This conclusion was based not only on the
observational temperature record, although this is the key piece of
evidence, but on multiple strands of evidence. These factors include:
long-term retreat of glaciers in most alpine regions of the world;
reductions in the area of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) snow cover during
the spring season; reductions in the length of the freeze season in many
NH rivers and lakes; reduction in Arctic sea-ice extent in all seasons,
but especially in the summer; increases in global average sea level since
the 19th century; increases in the heat content of the ocean and warming
of temperatures in the lower part of the atmosphere since the late 1950s.
CRU has also been involved in reconstructions of temperature (primarily
for the Northern Hemisphere) from proxy data (non-instrumental sources
such as tree rings, ice cores, corals and documentary records). Similar
temperature reconstructions have been developed by numerous other groups
around the world. The level of uncertainty in this indirect evidence for
temperature change is much greater than for the picture of temperature
change shown by the instrumental data. But different reconstructions of
temperature change over a longer period, produced by different researchers
using different methods, show essentially the same picture of highly
unusual warmth across the NH during the 20th century. The principal
conclusion from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second
half of the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any
other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the
warmest in the past 1300 years.
One particular, illegally obtained, email relates to the preparation of a
figure for the WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999.
This email referred to a trick of adding recent instrumental data to the
end of temperature reconstructions that were based on proxy data. The
requirement for the WMO Statement was for up-to-date evidence showing how
temperatures may have changed over the last 1000 years. To produce
temperature series that were completely up-to-date (i.e. through to 1999)
it was necessary to combine the temperature reconstructions with the
instrumental record, because the temperature reconstructions from proxy
data ended many years earlier whereas the instrumental record is updated
every month. The use of the word trick was not intended to imply any
deception.
Phil Jones comments further: One of the three temperature reconstructions
was based entirely on a particular set of tree-ring data that shows a
strong correlation with temperature from the 19th century through to the
mid-20th century, but does not show a realistic trend of temperature after
1960. This is well known and is called the decline or divergence. The use
of the term hiding the decline was in an email written in haste. CRU has
not sought to hide the decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of
articles that both illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this
recent tree-ring decline, including the article that is listed in the
legend of the WMO Statement figure. It is because of this trend in these
tree-ring data that we know does not represent temperature change that I
only show this series up to 1960 in the WMO Statement.
The decline in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to mean that
there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data. As for the
tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this phenomenon have been
discussed by numerous authors, and its implications are clearly signposted
in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report.
Included here is a copy of the figure used in the WMO statement, together
with an alternative version where the climate reconstructions and the
instrumental temperatures are shown separately.
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