Memorandum submitted by Warwick Hughes
(CRU 35)
1. My submission is mainly on your third
question about the independence of the international data sets.
There is a widespread view afoot that "the CRUJones
et al data is basically the same as the GHCN". Professor
Jones and CRU have at times pointed people wanting station data
in the direction of the US based GHCN dataset.
1.1. I note that in his letter to your Committee
on 10 December 2009, the UEA Vice Chancellor says, "It should
be noted that over 95% of the data has for some years been in
the public domain, such as on the NOAA site." My position
is that the NOAA/GHCN station data differs greatly from CRU station
data and could not be expected to provide serious researchers
with a proxy for CRU station data.
1.2. The two datasets, CRU and GHCN have
very different origins and histories, employed different methodologies
and as our maps show, end up with widely contrasting grid point
trends, despite drawing raw data from a similar pool of global
stations. There should be nothing surprising that two separate
teams produce results that are distinctively differentthat
sounds to me like normal science in progress.
2. On 18 February 2005 Professor P D Jones
of CRU replied to my emailed requests for his land station data
by including, "Why should I make the data available to you,
when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."
See Appendix I for a copy of the email and Appendix II. For a
reference to me and that email in the unauthorised release of
CRU emails.
2.1. During 2005 Professor P D Jones of
CRU was co-author of a study(Vose et al), Citation:
Vose, R S, D Wuertz, T C Peterson, and P D Jones (2005), An
intercomparison of trends in surface air temperature analyses
at the global, hemispheric, and grid-box scale, Geophys Res Lett,
32, L18718, doi:10.1029/2005GL023502. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023502.shtml
2.2. Vose et al concluded that there
was "reasonable agreement" between GHCN and CRU at the
grid-box level during the period 1976-2003. On reading Vose et
al and studying their Figures 5 (next page) it is clear that
outside the USA and Europe there are many areas where the grid
points trends (as indicated by the size of the red circles) bear
little resemblance from one map panel to the other.
2.3. Looking at the Vose et al Figure
6 and checking the scale carefully it looked to me that there
was more grid point divergence between the GHCN and CRU trends
than the impression given by Vose et al quoting the 9.4% number
in their text. With respect to the Vose et al Figure 6
scatter plot they say at the top left of page L18718, "..
9.4% of all grid-box trends differ by more than 0.100°C decade-1
in both magnitude and sign."
2.4. In 2006 Dr Russell Vose kindly sent
me the GHCN and CRU 5 degree grid point trends 1976-2003 used
in the Vose et al paper and I have calculated the GHCN
minus CRU trend differences and present the essence of my analysis
for your Committee.
2.5. GHCN minus CRU differences for the
1976-2003 periodwhich was chosen by Vose et al.
Their conclusion was that there is "reasonable agreement"
between these datasets There are 524 co-located grid point difference
values in the file as sent and a simple sorting and counting of
the grid point differences GHCN minus CRU shows that:
At 225 grid points (42.9% of 524) the difference
GHCN minus CRU measures from 0.099 to -0.099°C per decade
inclusive.
At 154 grid points (29.4% of 524) the difference
GHCN minus CRU measures 0.1 and above °C per decade.
At 145 grid points (27.7% of 524) the difference
GHCN minus CRU measures -0.1 and below °C per decade.
To sum up paragraph 2.557.1% of grid point
values for GHCN trend minus CRU trend are 0.1°C per decade
or greater, regardless of sign.
Note: 0.1°C per decade can be compared to
1°C per century which is greater than the rate of IPCC global
warming.

3. Figure 2 (below) shows the grid points
for which each dataset has no data while the other dataset does
find dataas per the file sent by Dr Vose in 2006. To make
that clear, the Green Crosses indicate grid points of five degree
latitude and longitude where GHCN finds no data but CRU does have
data. The Red Diamonds indicate grid points where CRU finds no
data but GHCN does have data. This map by itself reveals significant
differences between the GHCN and CRU datasets.
Figure 2

4. Conclusions: With respect to your Committee's
Question 3 "How independent are the other two international
data sets?" We believe our analysis demonstrates that the
GHCN and CRU datasets at the grid point scale are robustly independent.
Any agreement on hemispheric or global scales
is simply due to the cancelling out of large positive and negative
differences at the grid point level. It follows that these differences
would be even more marked at the station level, if indeed all
the CRU station data was made freely available.
I have a geology degree with hons from the University
of Auckland and have been analysing the Jones et al/CRU
temperature compilations since 1991. My referreed published papers
are listed in Appendix III.
APPENDIX I
Text of email to me from Professor P D Jones of CRU.
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 12:12:22 +0000
From: Phil Jones
To:
Subject: Re: WMO non respondo
Warwick,
Hans Teunisson will reply. He'll tell you which
other people should reply.
Hans is "Hans Teunissen" HTeunissen@wmo.int.
I should warn you that some data we have we
are not supposed top pass on to others. We can pass on the gridded
datawhich we do. Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass
on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why
should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try
and find something wrong with it. There is IPR to consider.
You can get similar data from GHCN at NCDC.
Australia isn't restricted there. Several European countries are.
Basically because, for example, France doesn't want the French
picking up data on France from Asheville. Meteo France wants to
supply data to the French on France. Same story in most of the
others.
Cheers
Phil
APPENDIX II
Brief extract from CRU email in file number 1256765544.txt
at this URL;
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1065&filename=1256765544.txt
Patrick J Michaels
Imagine if there were no reliable records of
global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade
would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this point be
little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would
not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable)
international climate deal in Copenhagen in December. Steel yourself
for the new reality, because the data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom
warming forecasts have disappeared.
Or so it seems. Apparently, they were either
lost or purged from some discarded computer. Only a very few people
know what really happened, and they aren't talking much. And what
little they are saying makes no sense.
In the early 1980s, with funding from the U.S.
Department of Energy, scientists at the United Kingdom's University
of East Anglia established the Climate Research Unit (CRU) to
produce the world's first comprehensive history of surface temperature.
It's known in the trade as the "Jones and Wigley" record
for its authors, Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, and it served as the
primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007. It was this record that prompted
the IPCC to claim a "discernible human influence on global
climate."
Putting together such a record isn't at all
easy. Weather stations weren't really designed to monitor global
climate. Long-standing ones were usually established at points
of commerce, which tend to grow into cities that induce spurious
warming trends in their records. Trees grow up around thermometers
and lower the afternoon temperature. Further, as documented by
the University of Colorado's Roger Pielke Sr, many of the stations
themselves are placed in locations, such as in parking lots or
near heat vents, where artificially high temperatures are bound
to be recorded.
So the weather data that go into the historical
climate records that are required to verify models of global warming
aren't the original records at all. Jones and Wigley, however,
weren't specific about what was done to which station in order
to produce their record, which, according to the IPCC, showed
a warming of 0.6° +/- 0.2\C in the 20th century.
Now begins the fun. Warwick Hughes, an Australian
scientist, wondered where that "+/-" came from, so he
politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original
data. Jones's response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate
his work was, "We have 25 years or so invested in the work.
Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is
to try and find something wrong with it?"
Reread that statement, for it is breathtaking
in its anti-scientific thrust. In fact, the entire purpose of
replication is to "try and find something wrong." The
ultimate objective of science is to do things so well that, indeed,
nothing is wrong.
APPENDIX III
REFEREED PUBLISHED
PAPERS1992 Robert C Balling,
Jr, Sherwood B Idso, and Warwick S Hughes. "Long-Term and
Recent Anomalous Temperature Changes in Australia." Geophysical
Research Letters, Vol 19, No 23, pp 2317-2320.
1995 Robert C Balling, Jr and Warwick S Hughes.
"Comments on Detecting Climate Change Concurrent with Deforestation
in the Amazon Basin: Which Way Has It Gone?" Bulletin of
the American Meteorological Society, Vol 76, No 4, 9. 559.
1995 Warwick S Hughes. Comment on D E Parker,
"Effects of Changing Exposure of Thermometers at Land Stations."
International Journal of Climatology, Vol 15, pp 231-234.
1996 Warwick S Hughes and Robert C Balling, Jr
"Urban Influences on South African Temperature Trends."
International Journal of Climatology, Vol 16, No 8, pp 935-940.
Online at http://www.john-daly.com/s-africa.htm
1997 Warwick S Hughes. Comment on, "Historical
Thermometer Exposures in Australia." by N Nichols et al.
International Journal of Climatology, Vol 17, pp 197-199.
February 2010
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