UPDATE: I have a couple of timely images from a shocking post at WUWT which relate to my comments below.
I have seen this highlighted at other blogs but I don’t think I’ve seen its subject matter discussed outside of the obvious ‘everyone has the same opinion at the UEA’ quote.
date: Mon Aug 23 15:52:14 2004
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Tonight with Trevor Macdonald
to: “Murphy Melissa (COMM) k816”Melissa,
There shouldn’t be someone else at UEA with different views – at least not a climatologist. It would also look odd if the two people interviewed with opposite views were from UEA. Maybe you should reply and say we can’t find one, saying that most climate experts would take the same view as Dave. The programme could easily dredge someone up, but they wouldn’t be an expert on the climate. This is the whole point of the debate recently. The people the media find to put the contrary view are not climate experts.
Phil
At 14:54 23/08/2004, you wrote:Hello All,
Next Monday night the “Tonight with Trevor Macdonald” show will be about climate change. Dr David Viner is going to be featured on the show, presenting his view that recent extreme weather is due to global warming. I have received a call from David Reddings who is part of the show’s team, asking if we have a climate expert who has a different view to Dr Viner – perhaps believing that recent weather has not been caused by global warming but is merely part of the ‘natural variability’ of the weather. Do we have someone at UEA?Regards,
Melissa.
Melissa Murphy
Communications Assistant
Press & PR Office
Communications Division
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich
—————————————————————————-
Extreme weather is one of the biggest BS claims of climate science. There have been no detected extreme weather changes since AGW began that I’m aware of. What’s more is that there is no connection yet to the tenths of a degree of warming we’ve measured. It is fantastically insane to imagine that a few tenths of a degree are going to create a noticeable difference in weather. We can barely detect the temp change. The whole concept is so asinine by itself that I can’t even imagine listening to it. Why then do scientists people keep trying to say it?
Money. They need damage for their AGW political and economic goals to be funded well. It doesn’t matter one bit that the data don’t show any differences and no physical attribution has been proven, they need it so they say it. If there were 4C of sudden warming, maybe we find some change but we’ve seen 0.8C so how the hell will that be noticeable in the hurricane or tornado patterns. Hell, until satellites were used, we couldn’t even detect all the hurricanes. We still don’t pick up all the tornadoes.
Crazy people with an agenda.
These aren’t my views only, many scientists have made these points in various fashion. It is absolutely false that you can’t find a climate expert to make the statement that extreme hurricanes, droughts, rain, tornadoes haven’t been detected. We all have read them including Jones. He is simply presenting his fantasy to the media for some unstated purpose.
the Air Vent 
He is simply presenting his fantasy to the media for some unstated purpose.
“The Cause”
“Next Monday night the Tonight with Trevor Macdonald show will be about climate change. Dr David Viner is going to be featured on the show, presenting his view that recent extreme weather is due to global warming.”
You mean THE Dr. Viner of “no more snow” fame? Heh!! Is he still around? Oh, yeah – right here…
The mini ice age starts here
By David Rose
Created 11:15 PM on 9th January 2010
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the worlds most eminent climate scientists.
…
In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious Warmergate leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become a very rare and exciting event in Britain, and that children just arent going to know what snow is.
Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual 10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: Weve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesnt change anything.
‘This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.
—
Double heh!!
All the extreme weather nonsense in these days (with the Durban conference opening) is really painful. Now “extreme weather linked to global warming is causing food prices to rise” according to http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/11/climate-change-extreme-weather-spike-food-prices/1?csp=34news
– when in fact global warming has kept food prices down in the last few decades, but global political silliness like using food for fuel is now causing food prices to rise!
Hard to demonstrate people being so greedy…it’s easier to think, they’re afraid of losing their livelihood so have to keep the fire burning no matter what the science says
“It is absolutely false that you can’t find a climate expert to make the statement that extreme hurricanes, droughts, rain, tornadoes haven’t been detected.”
On the contrary, I think it’s probably true. We’ve had plenty of extreme weather. The issue here is that it’s unclear what proposition Jones is responding to. There are scientists who will say that connection between AGW and extreme weather is unproven. But it sounds like she’s asking for someone who would assert positively that there is no role for global warming (“natural variation”). If so, I think Jones may be right.
That’s the problem with these discussions based on trawling through people’s emails. You don’t know the context. It’s likely that there had been a prior phone call. It’s very likely that Jones had learnt more about the program from Viner. It may very well be that she is really looking for someone from the GWPF (or whatever they had then). And it’s not surprising that he would respond that UEA is not the place to find them.
Nick,
First link. There is a ton of this stuff out there. I don’t agree at all that we can’t tell the context of these emails. Most have a long history or chain. Hide the decline has a very specific context for instance. Here’s what Jones said in a nutshell – I don’t think that it would be a good idea for UEA to be seen arguing with itself. Weather is scary, pay money.
Click to access 05pielke.pdf
CONCLUSIONS. To summarize, claims of linkages
between global warming and hurricane impacts
are premature for three reasons. First, no connection
has been established between greenhouse gas
emissions and the observed behavior of hurricanes
(Houghton et al. 2001; Walsh 2004). Emanuel (2005)
is suggestive of such a connection, but is by no means
definitive. In the future, such a connection may be
established [e.g., in the case of the observations
of Emanuel (2005) or the projections of Knutson
and Tuleya (2004)] or made in the context of other
metrics of tropical cyclone intensity and duration
that remain to be closely examined. Second, the
peer-reviewed literature reflects that a scientific
consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane
intensities will likely be small in the context
of observed variability (Knutson and Tuleya 2004;
Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998), while the scientific
problem of tropical cyclogenesis is so far from being
solved that little can be said about possible changes
in frequency. And third, under the assumptions of
the IPCC, expected future damages to society of its
projected changes in the behavior of hurricanes are
dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of
growing wealth and population (Pielke et al. 2000).
“We are all Individuals that think and speak the same”! Welcome to 1984.
Excerpt from “How we know they know they are lying”:
Shifting sands
Here is a progression – global warming, climate change, climate disruption. They are three terms that have been
successively used to describe the same putative phenomenon. Real science does not keep changing its nomenclature,
save in special cases, such as taxonomy where interpretations alter. The progression to “climate change” occurred
when it became obvious that the world was not warming as advertised, so claim could be laid to cold weather as well
as warm; but that was not emotive enough; so “climate disruption” came into being. It simply means bad weather. The
weather has long been a topic of exploitation by demagogues. A hundred years ago, it was due to the wrath of god.
Fifty years ago, it was due to “all them atom bombs”. Now it is due to the humble carbon atom. Unseasonal weather is
occurring somewhere around the globe all the time. According to the principle of selectivity, a thousand occurrences of
“normal” weather are ignored and the abnormal case is broadcast around the world.
John Brignell
January 2009
Read the whole “How we know they know they are lying” here:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/lying.htm
The public may be awakening to the fact that global climate scare stories are being used to distract attention away from the collapse of economies in former “Free West.”
See readers comments on “Project begins injection of CO2 for storage at Illinois Basin”, PhysOrg.com (28 Nov 2011)
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-co2-storage-illinois-basin.html
“I don’t think that it would be a good idea for UEA to be seen arguing with itself. Weather is scary, pay money.”
The idea for the program came from the journalist. The proposition about UEA arguing with itself is one of those tangles that Jones sometimes seems to get into when writing emails. The operative fact, which he alludes to, is that there wasn’t anyone at CRU to make that argument. It’s a small group.
I don’t blame him for ‘the nobody will disagree’ answer although it is not the truth. He felt he couldn’t really say, it wouldn’t be in our best interest even if there was such a person….. Where he went wrong is the complete BS about no climate expert would disagree. He’s making a propaganda filled sales pitch to a like minded person in the hopes that the show will communicate his message.
Nick:
I think Jone’s comment was more about message control than whether there was anybody in the climate group willing to disagree with Viner.
As a related aside, it is possible to polish a turd.
Nick Stokes,
Please. The full email messages provides plenty of context.
Nick, here is the thing: if the temperature difference between equatorial and polar regions falls (automatic for GHG driven warming), then there ought to be fewer violent storms not more. Gee… what a shock, that is what the data actually say. Come on Nick, the whole ‘violent weather’ meme is a distraction from meaningful discussions. Nowhere is there credible data showing positive trends in violent weather. Even you can’t conjure that out of nothing.
Carrick,
It may in fact be impossible to polish a turd, but dung beetles and climate scientists seem to share a common desire to try… tirelessly.
Jeff Id: “It is absolutely false that you can’t find a climate expert to make the statement that extreme hurricanes, droughts, rain, tornadoes haven’t been detected.”
Nick Stokes:
“On the contrary, I think it’s probably true. We’ve had plenty of extreme weather….”
You cannot say that this wishful and unfounded ‘thinking’ isn’t self-interested. Who here has not read Matt Ridley’s “Scientific Heresy” delivered to the Royal Society of the Arts in Edinburgh, last October 31st?
Ridley’s argument is precisely the role of confirmation bias in leading scientists down wrong pathways of premature commitment. There’s nothing new under the sun in global warming science, Nick. We’ve been there, done that – are doing it again. You’re our perp AND victim.
Nick Stokes said
November 29, 2011 at 5:09 pm
“It is absolutely false that you can’t find a climate expert to make the statement that extreme hurricanes, droughts, rain, tornadoes haven’t been detected.”
On the contrary, I think it’s probably true. We’ve had plenty of extreme weather. The issue here is that it’s unclear what proposition Jones is responding to. There are scientists who will say that connection between AGW and extreme weather is unproven. But it sounds like she’s asking for someone who would assert positively that there is no role for global warming (“natural variation”). If so, I think Jones may be right.
That’s the problem with these discussions based on trawling through people’s emails. You don’t know the context. It’s likely that there had been a prior phone call. It’s very likely that Jones had learnt more about the program from Viner. It may very well be that she is really looking for someone from the GWPF (or whatever they had then). And it’s not surprising that he would respond that UEA is not the place to find them.
Nick,
I rarely comment because everyone here, including you, are way smarter than me. In fact, I learn a lot from your comments on maths and stuff, but get your head out of the sand.
A couple of comments. first, your comment has a bunch of assumptions, generalities, and unsupported conclusions which you would be the first to admonish other people for making on this and other blogs. Second, you say, “you don’t know the context.” If someone took one quote out of one email, that arguably could be out of context. But come on. When you have the full text of several thousand emails from various people over a decade or more, it’s not hard to be able to get the gist of the context.
Again, I respect and learn a lot from your comments on maths and modeling, but how do you form any conclusions on anything if you can’t take the various lines of evidence, evaluate, and synthesize them.
Read closely: What Jones said was “There shouldn’t be someone else at UEA with different views – at least not a climatologist. It would also look odd if the two people interviewed with opposite views were from UEA.” To repeat: “There SHOULDN’T” not “There isn’t”. This is a normative not an empirical statement. It in no way asserts that there in fact WASN’T anyone at UEA who might have filled the bill. Then he goes on to say “It would also LOOK ODD …”. A fear that something might look ODD is a strange attitude for a scientist to have.
I for one am glad Nick takes the pro-AGW side. We need an intelligent sparring partner because one day he may point out something we all missed. Not today though.
Saying AGW makes weather events more extreme is about as useful as saying sea level rise make tsunamis worse.
I just posted this over at WUWT….and it seems timely here too…wrt how people who have the final say have a lot of power:
I just went over to Pielke Jr.’s and he has a post that compares the changes made to the Extreme Weather report that was just released for COP17.
From:
“Long-term trends in normalized economic disaster losses cannot be reliably attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change, particularly for cyclones and floods (medium evidence, high agreement).”
To:
“Long-term trends in economic disaster losses adjusted for wealth and population increases have not been attributed to climate change, but a role for climate change has not been excluded (medium evidence, high agreement).”
Roger attributes that to the IPCC process….maybe he’s being droll, but I just call it fogging something up for purposes of disinformation. I.e. Propagandizing.
The first says ‘we looked and found no correlation’…the second, ‘we pretty much don’t know…can’t say…but could be’
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/
Joseph – that is the way I clearly understood it when I encountered this email several days ago. There should not be anybody here – as in we would not hire that way, nor tolerate it.
Ummm, ………and we have the emails to prove it.
The whole meme of “out of context” is really an insult to people who have Phd’s (especially in a technical field communicating with the written word) and are teaching and mentoring the next generation of educated, literate people.
Something is terribly wrong with the this proposition.
Joseph:
Well that is the plan English meaning of:
So not only is he afraid of things looking ODD, he’s recommending a response to the PR office for UEA.
Seriously, this is an email response to the UEA PR office, and you think we should interpret this as something other than being related to image!?
LOL!!!
Anyway, it’s not like you can’t find dozens of examples in the emails where Jones is concerned about image or anything.
Your notion is frankly just naïve that just, because he’s a scientist, that a “fear that something might look ODD is a strange attitude”.
No sh**, Sherlocke.
The first time I looked at a “global average temperature graph” that was my reaction – and it still is. The entire RANGE since 1800 is so small 85-95% of people wouldn’t notice it. Yet the world is supposedly burring up. We had some seriously hot years in 1988, 1997 and 1998. We freaking NOTICED those. And in some of those years we could only use our association swimming pool about 5 days in an entire summer – and in late July, everyone was wondering when summer was going to arrive – and the news touted them as “the 2nd/3rd warmest years ever. Total bull crap. The people are playing loose with the data.
1800 was still in the LIA, wasn’t it? BEST sure shows it as being “cold” in about 1806. From that bottom, BEST shows us having climbed by only about 1.8C. But BEST was using the data from NASA/GISS/NOAA/NCAR/CRU.
Go outside some day twice – once at one temp and once at 1.9C less – and see how much difference you can sense. THAT is the difference between now and the LIA? We are being stroked, people.
My second reaction back then was “No. Someone doesn’t know what they are doing. People DID notice the LIA, just like people DID notice the MWP, unless I am crazy. Therefore the levels in the LIA had to be seriously lower than what they are telling us from the tree rings and other proxies. These numbers are just not believable.”
I dare anyone to send someone outside and tell what the temperature is. I dare anyone to do it at two different times on two different days with temps within 0.7C and tell which day was warmer. Ain’t gonna happen.
When seeing the Hockey Stick, most people look at the “blade” in the 1990s and are shocked.
I saw the “handle” and was shocked. Mann thought people would accept that the temperature for 1,000 years crept slowly and consistently downward a total of about 0.5C, with hardly a ripple?
The amazing thing is no one made any big deal about THAT part of the hockey stick. He’d erased the (previously accepted by the IPCC) MWP and the LIA, and I laughed at it. It blew me away that anyone who knew the slightest BIT about the climate history wouldn’t throw him out on his arse. I would have.
Grrrr bah humbug. . . .
Steve Garcia: In places where it mattered most, the LIA probably was a matter of several degrees. The long temperature record of Uppsala, Sweden, shows a span from less than 3C to more than 7C in yearly mean temperature: http://www.smhi.se/sgn0102/n0205/upps_www.pdf – and even that record doesn’t start until the very warm period of 1720-1740. The main and most severe part of the LIA was probably from 1550 to 1700.
Steve Garcia,
As a person of Inuit descent from the north I find your comments extremely offensive and to be frank they’re utterly devoid of factual basis.
We notice very clearly what extraordinary years can do and what impacts they have on our lifestyles. Try hunting seal and caribou when there is significantly less snow and ice such has been the case in our region over the last 5 years. Perhaps that year was “only” 2 degrees above average but two degrees can have significant impacts on the regional scale. It is easy for people to say these stupid comments about swimming pools etc… when they are not on the forefront of where rapid changes are occurring, but to pretend that because they don’t affect you then they don’t affect anyone is lunacy.
Nick: in every case where people have carefully compiled records of extreme events, they fail to find them. For floods, detailed studies in USA and Europe show nothing unusual. The hurricane data when one only counts landfalling ones which got into the newspapers (to avoid the increasing ability over time of observing storms that don’t hit land) there is no trend anywhere in the world, or even down. Tornados in USA? Same thing. Droughts are almost impossible to quantify (they have duration, severity, spatial extent–none of which are typically measured). Same thing for snow storms. The “severity” of a snow storm has more to do with emergency preparedness than actual amount of snow. NY city was shut down last year because their plow operators goofed up, not because it was even an unusual amount for NY. So what extreme weather is left? A very dishonest graph sometimes used merges all disaster losses, including tsunamis and earthquakes. So saying “we have certainly had lots of extreme weather” reflects more our being plugged in to global news networks than anything else.