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Mr James Snowdome
Direct tel: +44(0)1392 884036
Direct
fax:
08700 900 5050
By e-mail to:
Request-1101-6dc63a4e@
whatdotheyknow.com
31 July 2008
Our ref: 15-07-2008-122601-002
Dear Mr Snowdome
Re:
Freedom of Information Request Your e-mail dated 10 July 2008 has been considered to be a request for information
in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
You asked for the following information:
1.
How much money was spent on the Global Warming Facts and Myths section of
your website?
The approximate internal and external costs were £1240.00.
2.
Could you also please let me know how much research the Met Office did into
the Cosmic Ray myth before declaring it a myth? Furthermore I would like to
know what measure of solar activity the Met Office is using with respect to their
"bunking" of this myth? Is it Total Solar Irradience or Sun Spot number or some
other measurement?
The research done to support the statements in the "Climate Myths" pages are
based predominantly on expert assessment of the scientific peer reviewed literature.
This opinion is reflected in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
report (IPCC 2007 - chapter 2). The Met Office Hadley Centre also commissioned
an independent report into solar influences of climate which fed into our
assessments (Gray 2005).
There is no evidence that recent warming has been significantly contributed to by
either solar irradiance changes or by other indirect solar activity changes such as
cosmic ray activity. Examining a number of different measures of solar activity, such
as solar irradiance, sunspot number, sunspot cycle length, geomagnetic indices or
cosmic rays, shows that there have been little underlying change over the last 30-50
years, whilst global temperatures have increased.
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In fact a recent study (Lockwood 2007) showed that trends in solar activity over the
last 20 years were in the opposite sense to explain the recent changes in surface
temperatures.
Research at the Met Office of how solar activity may effect climate change is mainly
focused on the better understood influence of changes in solar irradiance or
brightness. Our research has suggested a significant influence of the Sun on early
20th century climate change (IPCC 2007 - chapter 9).
References
IPCC "Climate Change 2007: Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis.
Lockwood, M. and Frohlich, C., 2007, Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature, Proc. Roy. Soc. A.
Gray, L.J., Haigh, J.D., Harrison, R.G., The influence of solar changes on the Earth's
climate, Met Office Hadley Centre technical note 62, 2005
3.
You also state in the Myths section that the CO2 increase is measurable and its
effect is well quantified. Can you please direct me to the papers which calculate
the quantity of effect an increase of CO2 has on temperature (I have never seen
a paper that actually shows me the "well quantified" effect, only a broad range
of effects taken from computer modelling which, as we all know, is open to
abuse by the pre-conceived ideas of the modellers)?
The warming effect of CO2 is well quantified as has been demonstrated in
experiments over the last 100 or so years. The gas is a so called greenhouse gas,
that is it absorbs long wave radiation. References to the earliest studies into this
can be found in a variety of accessible sources (IPCC 2007 - chapter 1, Hanson
2006, RealClimate)
References
IPCC "Climate Change 2007: Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis.
Hanson, R., The rough guide to climate change, 2006 RealClimate,
www.realclimate.org
4.
In your Fact 1 pdf you state that temperatures have risen by 0.7 degrees over
the last 100 years. Can you please let me know a) how much the background
rise has been, on average, since the end of the last ice age and b) which model
of the last 100 years you have used. Has this model been peer reviewed and
ALL data, methods, and computer code been open to external reviewers on
request?
a). As direct scientific observations of climate were obviously not made in pre-
history, paleoclimate scientists have to use so called proxies to estimate the climatic
history. Proxies such as tree ring data, chemical measurements of ice and ocean
floor cores, can give estimates of the local mean climate changes that were
happening over thousands of years. It is estimated that during the so called Last
Glacial Maximum, or the greatest extent of ice sheets and glaciers during the last ice
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age, (about 21 thousand years ago), that temperatures could have been up to 5C
cooler in the tropics, and cooler further in higher latitudes (IPCC 2007- chapter 6).
b). The models used in the figure in "Fact 1" are Met Office Hadley Centre models
HadCM3, currently in the web based page (Met Office 2007), and HadGEM1, in the
document version (Met Office 2008). Descriptions and methodologies for the
models can be found in a number of sources the main ones being Pope et al, 2000
and Gordon et al, 2000 for HadCM3 and Martin et al, 2006 and Johns et al, 2006 for
HadGEM1. Thus the model design and physics has been peer-reviewed in the
scientific literature. The code is shared with collaborators under license.
The models used in both figures were also used in the IPCC multimodel
assessments (IPCC 2007 - chapter 8,9) where there are also
descriptions/references of the evaluation of the models. Data produced by the
models (and from other institutions models) can be found on the CMIP3 multi model
data set archive at PCMDI.
References :
Gordon, C, et al, 2000. The simulation of SST, sea-ice extents and ocean heat
transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments.
Clim. Dyn., 16, 147-168.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/
Met Office, 2008,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/bigpicture.pdf
PCMDI - http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php
IPCC "Climate Change 2007: Working Group 1: The physical science basis.
PCMDI - http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php
T.C. Johns, C.F. Durman, H.T. Banks, M.J. Roberts, A.J. McLaren, J.K. Ridley, C.A.
Senior, K.D. Williams, A. Jones, G.J. Rickard, S. Cusack, W.J. Ingram, M. Crucifix,
D.M.H. Sexon, M.M. Joshi, B-W. Dong, H. Spencer, R.S.R. Hill, J.M. Gregory, A.B.
Keen, A.K. Pardaens, J.A. Lowe, A. Bodas-Salcedo, S. Stark, and Y. Searl, 2006.
The new Hadley Centre climate model HadGEM1: Evaluation of coupled
simulations. Journal of Climate, 19, 1327-1353.
Martin, GM et al, 2006. The physical properties of the atmosphere in the new Hadley
Centre Global Environmental Model, HadGEM1. Part I: Model description and global
climatology. J. Climate. 19, 1274-1301.
Pope VD, et al, 2000. The impact of new physical parameterizations in the Hadley
Centre climate model: HadAM3. Clim. Dyn. 16, 123-146
5.
With respect to your Fact 2 you state that it has warmed by 0.1 degree in the
past decade. Now that we have accurate satellite measurements I assume that
this number has come from these rather than a model which, again, can reflect
the pre-conceived ideas of the modellers. Can you please confirm that this
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measurement comes from the accurate satellite measurements and, if not, why
not?
The information presented in "Fact 2" is from observations of near surface
temperatures, taken from thermometer readings at land based meteorological stations
and ocean buoys and ship observations. No climate or meteorological model
simulation is used here. Satellite measurements, whilst having the advantage of
almost total area coverage, are not necessarily more accurate than surface
observations and do not measure the same thing. Satellites have only been taking
observations since the late 1970s, whilst surface observations go back over 100
years. Satellites are also indirectly measuring the temperature of the lower
atmosphere, and due to changes in satellites, their orbits and in the methods of
reconstructing the temperatures, there are some quantifiable and unquantifiable
uncertainties on the obtained temperatures (IPCC 2007 - chapter 3). This is reflected
in the several different reconstructions of atmospheric temperatures from satellite
data made by different institutions (IPCC 2007 - chapter 3).
There are of course uncertainties on surface observations, as demonstrated by the
error bars in figure 1 in "Fact 2". More information and references to the observed
temperatures can be found on
www.hadobs.org.
References
IPCC "Climate Change 2007: Working Group 1: The Physical Science Basis.
6.
In Fact 3 you state that CO2 and temperature are linked. Can you please let
me know how much a rise in temperature lags behind CO2 increase?
This is also addressed in the IPCC publication “Climate Change 2007: The Physical
science Basis” section 6.4
7.
In Fact 5 you state that global temperature will rise by 2-3 degrees this century
according to one of the IPCC's mid-range models. Regardless of the fact that
the IPCC is a heavily politicised organisation with reports written by a core of
"scientists" who refuse to disclose methods and data and are well known for
their bias towards proving that mankind is the sole factor behind climate
change; can you please tell me which model output we are currently tracking
according to satellite temperature measurements.
Please refer to the answer in point 4 above.
8.
In Fact 6 you state that climate models predict the main features of future
climate. Can you please let me know if the data entering these models is
available to ALL external reviewers, along with the code and methodology? If
not then please let me know why not? Can you also please let me know how
well the temperature increase in the atmosphere, as predicted by these models,
compares to that observed by satellite measurements?
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Information that is fed into the model is taken from a variety of sources which have
been published in peer reviewed scientific journals. Data produced by the models
(and from other institutions models) can be found on the CMIP3 multi model data set
archive at PCMDI. For other model references please see answer to Question 4b.
Recent studies, which scientists from the Met Office contributed to, have examined
the trends in atmosphere temperatures over the last several decades and have
concluded that observations from radiosondes (balloon based thermometer readings)
and that reconstructed from satellite measurements are generally consistent with
climate model simulations (CCSP 2006) but that there are still issues with
inconsistencies between different reconstructions of atmospheric temperatures from
satellites (Santer 2005, Thorne 2007).
References
Climate Change Science Program report, Temperature Trends in the Lower
Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences, 2006
Santer, B.D. et. al., Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in
the Tropical Atmosphere, Science 2005
Thorne, P.W. et. al., Tropical vertical temperature trends: A real discrepancy?
Geophysical Research Letters 2007
I hope that this answers your query.
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Yours sincerely
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Penny Ward
Legal and Procurement Team
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