This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'Global Warming'.


 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
xxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx 
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? 
 
FitzRoy Road, Exeter 
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www.metoffice.gov.uk 


 
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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Penny Ward 
Legal and Procurement Team 
 
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