Climategate 2 : Vincent Courtillot cité dans les emails piratés des scientifiques du climat

Plus de 5 000 nouveaux emails piratés, provenant apparemment de l'université britannique au centre du scandale du Climategate en 2009, ont été mis en ligne ce mardi, juste avant la reprise des négociations sur le climat en Afrique du Sud, prévues lors de la conférence de Durban à la fin du mois. Avec ce Climategate 2, c'est la mission politique de certains climatologues qui se fait jour.

En novembre 2009, à la veille du sommet sur le climat à Copenhague, plus d'un millier d'emails de chercheurs collaborant avec le prestigieux centre de recherche sur le climat (CRU) de l'université britannique d'East Anglia avaient déjà été publiés sur Internet. Ces documents avaient permis de révéler certaines pressions, intimidations et manipulations au sein de la communauté scientifique spécialisée dans l'étude du climat.

- Pour plus d'infos en anglais : The Telegraph, BBC, The Guardian, Dailymail, The Washington Post, Reuters, Fox News, ABC News, Time, RealClimate, JunkScience, Climate Audit, Climate Depot, Anthony Watts.

- Pour plus d'infos en français : Le Point, Le Monde, Objectif Liberté et Skyfall.

- Pour télécharger le fichier contenant les 5 000 emails, cliquez ici.

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Parmi ces milliers d'emails piratés, une trentaine cite le nom de Vincent Courtillot. J'en reproduis certains extraits ci-dessous (les passages intéressants sont en rouge). Pour rappel, il n'est pas question ici de trancher le débat scientifique du réchauffement climatique mais de révéler certaines coulisses obscures de la recherche sur le climat.

Email 0431

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:19:42 +0100

To: Phil Jones From: Edouard BARD

Subject: French daggers (+ 3 attached files)

X-Attachments: :Macintosh HD:1254945:VC-DroitReponse - Acad.doc: :Macintosh

HD:1254945:Acad01-08-SH.ppt: :Macintosh HD:929141:LeMonde16/1/08.pdf:

Hello Phil,

Ray sent a formal letter to Science. This is submitted for publication in the paper version of Science. Given the size limit (300 words) he couldn't give many details about the temperature data. An additional possibility for commenting is through what they call an e-letter that goes quicker. Note that during the 'Secret Committee' last Tuesday at the Academy, Courtillot and Allègre ferociously accused me for organizing a plot against their institute IPGP. As I told you, nobody was there to defend my case. Note also that Courtillot makes direct and vicious attacks against you.

[...]

At 10:45 05/02/2008, you wrote:

Dear Phil,

Sorry to bother you again with this stuff, but it is important to keep you tuned. Besides the informations sent previously (e.g. my messages pasted below), you should know that Courtillot keeps saying and writing publicly that you did errors in your publications and datasets available to the public. A further example is the video of his talk available on the IPGP web site. In the front row of the packed audience, you can even see the president of CNRS (Ms. Brechignac) and the former Director of Scientific Research of the Ministry (Ms Giacobino). I paste below some comments (in French) that I wrote to colleagues about when Courtillot lies about your work.

The main reason for my email is also to inform you about the forthcoming meeting in London during which Courtillot will give a keynote lecture just after Jim Hansen ! The title of his presentation is particularly appealing "Which global warming?".

This is the annual meeting of the British Geophysical Association "New Advances in Geophysics" on the theme "Geophysics of Global Climate Change". "The aim of the meeting is to bring together the diverse strands of geophysical research into climate change".

The six keynote speakers are the following : Dr. Jim Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. Heiko Palike, NOC, Southampton, Prof. Vincent Courtillot, IPG, Paris, Dr. David Pyle, Oxford, Dr. Mark Siddall, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Prof. Paul Wilson, NOC, Southampton

More info can be found on the following web site:
[1] http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/~heiko/NAG2008/NAG2008.html

I hope that you will be able to attend or that somebody from your lab will be able to respond to the detailed accusations propagated by Courtillot.

Best wishes, Edouard

Email 0739

date: Wed Feb 6 13:21:06 2008

from: Phil Jones

subject: Feb 7-8

to: James Hansen

 Jim,

I see you're down for a meeting in London tomorrow and Friday. I have been having something of a run in with a French scientist called Vincent Courtillot. He is making Edouard Bard's life awful in French. If you're there on the Friday when Vincent is talking then tell him he's just completely wrong. He will likely say the climate isn't warming and even if it was it has little to do with greenhouse gases. So shouldn't be difficult!!

I'm lecturing here in Norwich to students so can't make it to London. If you're not there on the Friday, just make sure one or two reasonable scientists are aware that they have invited a bit of rogue!

Cheers

Phil

Email 0845

[...]
At 15:29 +0000 14/01/08, Phil Jones wrote:
Jean,

Will you be going to the EGU in Vienna this April?

This disagreement with Courtillot seems to be getting out of hand. Edouard isn't having a great time at the moment. The data Courtillot used is not on the CRU web site. We did produce it, but for a paper Keith worked on in 2002. Courtillot's global is CRU data, but not the globe - it is land north of 20N and April to September only!

The French Academy is looking a bit of a laughing stock! I did meet Courtillot in March last year - he was courteous, but he should read the literature!

Cheers

Phil

From: Jean Jouzel [1]
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: FYI: Daggers Are Drawn
X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (shiva.jussieu.fr
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X-Virus-Status: Clean
X-Miltered: at shiva.jussieu.fr with ID 478BEB15.002 by Joe's j-chkmail (
[2]http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)!
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Dear Phil,

Yes the situation is very bad in and I was indeed going to write you to ask somewhat for your help in getting some support to Edouard, which is really needed. Certainly one thing you could do would be to write to the editor of Science at least pointing to the fact that the figure is misleading using again the seasonal above 20°N Briffa et al. data set as global.

May be also at some point write something supporting the answer of Edouard and Gilles Delaygue, to EPSL (or in answering the letter Courtillot has recently written see attached in which he is very critical with respect to your work). I don't know ....

Yes I will be in Vienna , this will be a pleasure to meet you

With my best

Jean
　
   
[...]

Email 2194 (lire à rebours)

----Messaggio originale----
Da: p.jones@uea.ac.uk
Data: 14.12.2007 10.37
A:
Oggetto: Re: AW: Re: geomagnetic field and climate

Jacopo,

I'm not suggesting fraud, just that Bard/Delaygue weren't able to reproduce what Courtillot et al claimed to have done. Courtillot et al may be considered high profile scientists, but this is in a non-climate field. The issue here is that they are not fully aware of all the literature in the climate field. They are very selective of the papers they cite and the journal EPSL isn't considered mainstream in the climate field. They tend to publish in what I would refer to as the non-climate literature. In this respect the editors have a harder time knowing they are getting access to the best climate reviewers.

To get another (may be similar) view to mine, I'd contact Thomas Stocker in Bern. (stocker@climate.unibe.ch) Thomas like me was involved in the 2007 IPCC Report. These papers weren't considered for the IPCC as they were after the deadline of mid-summer 2007. I doubt they would have been referred to, as they are not in mainstream climate journals. The IPCC 2007 WG1 Report is the most authoritative document you can read on the subject. There is no dispute (see Ch 9) in the IPCC WG1 2007 that solar output changes explain some of the temperature increase in the first half of the 20th century. Why I was pointing out the Lockwood/Frohlich paper is that it shows natural forcing (the sun and volcanoes) should have caused a cooling since the 1960s. Lockwood/Frohlich realise this, but Courtillot et al don't seem to.

As we have to invoke the positive effect of greenhouse gases and the negative effect of sulphate aerosols to explain recent warming, you can only ignore sulphate aerosols (as it is small) earlier in the 20th century.

So the sun can't explain all the increase as greenhouse gases were going up then as well (albeit less so). When I say invoking above I mean giving best estimates of past forcing to climate model simulations of the 20th century.

Cheers

Phil

At 08:48 14/12/2007, you wrote:

>Dear Phil,

thank you for your open and prompt answer. I am not just aiming to fuel non-sense debates, I wish you understand this. In the first paragraph of your answer, are you arguing there have might be some fraud in Courtillot paper? (I'll keep your answer strictly confidential). I understand your points on peer reviewing. However, Courtillot and co. are considered high profile scientists (http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/awards/medallists/_2005/petrus_peregrinus.html, as an example). And I, as a non specialist, get a bit confused as they argue that the others are not getting the right point around climate change.

May I ask you: does any of those in the two papers I have sent you are involved in the IPCC? This is the only reliable source I may think of.

I have read the Frohlich paper you have sent me. It seems there is agreement between Corutillot and Frohlich as they both notice a preindustrial influence of sun forcing in climate, but an abrupt shift since the 80ies.

Thank you again,

Jacopo
----Messaggio originale----
Da: p.jones@uea.ac.uk
Data: 13.12.2007 18.29
A:
Oggetto: Re: geomagnetic field and climate

Jacopo,

I'd put far more faith in the comment on the Courtillot paper by Bard and Delaygue. I was asked by Edouard Bard to try and locate the file Courtillot et al say they use in their response to Bard/Delaygue. All this is at the end of the Bard/Delaygue comment on p5/6. This name of this file is not the way I name files here. It is also not on the CRU web site and a google search doesn't find it!

The global T record they (Courtillot et al) claim to use (Jones et al. 1999/Brohan et al. 2007) is not the same as the one we produce here. Edouard Bard was unable to reproduce their diagram with the correct series I sent him. This doesn't make much difference, but you wonder what other mistakes they have made.

There is no need to invoke any geomagnetic indices to explain the global T record. It can be quite well approximated from a solar series (preferably a recent one by Lean), a volcano series and anthropogenic sources (greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols). I think if you want to refer to this subject at least refer to a good paper on the subject. I am attaching one. This is far better and well argued paper. The answers to all your questions will be in this paper. Frohlich is Swiss, so better to report on a correct Swiss than a French person who doesn't understand the climate system!

There are two problems/issues in the climate field :

1. Journals publish papers by Courtillot et al (and probably shouldn't). They give some unscrupulous people an excuse to say there is disagreement amongst climate scientists about what is happening and how much WE are to blame. Courtillot et al may understand magnetism, but they don't understand the climate system. I don't try and publish on magnetism! People think they can publish in the climate field without knowing little about the literature. There are too many journals (and still growing) and all have difficulty finding qualified reviewers.

2. The media are constantly picking up geo-engineering solutions to the climate change issue. This gives the public and some politicians a belief that there is a fix around the corner. There isn't. The only way to slow the increase in temperature is to reduce emissions.

Cheers

Phil

At 12:46 13/12/2007, you wrote:

I am a journalist, I live and work in Basel, Switzerland. I happen to report to Science magazine, occasionally, I have read with interest a paper to be published on Earth and Planetary Science Letters about magnetic forcing on climate change. I thought that the solar forcing of climate was quite debunked, but I see there it is offered another perspective. In fact, I was not aware about this geomagnetic perspective on climate. I am going to report about it on Science magazine and I would very much like to hear you opinion (because of your profile in this subject and because you are widely quoted in the paper).

Courtillot claims that up to 1980, on 10-100 scale, and 1000-10000 scale climate change correlates well with changes in geomagnetic field of earth (no causality). Correct? What would be the driver of the change in geomagnetic field? It seems Courtillot does not neglect the anthropogenic rise since ca 1980. Correct? Courtillot suggests a potential cause could be in" modulation of cosmic rays which are increasingly recognised as potential drivers of changes in cloud cover and albedo". Correct (or could you please explain me better; considering that I am not a specialist in this field)? Is it really "increasingly recognised"? How much changes in cloud cover and albedo due to cosmic rays could effect the climate change? On which basis scientists reject this hpothesis? After all Courtillot just says we should investigate more in this direction. He does not reject the CO2 hypothesis at all. Instead he acceptes it for the last few decades? What are the scientific implications of Courtillot's claims, would these be proven to be correct? I mean with regards with IPCC projections and alike.

Thank you and best regards (in case we may speak over the phone tomorrow).

Jacopo Pasotti

PS I include the paper and a comment on. But mind that there is a reply on the comment in the journal's website.

Jacopo Pasotti, MSc.
Science Communicator
Science Journalist
Basel - Switzerland
Mobile: +41.(0)787627785
Home: +41.(0)61.3611340
jacopo.pasotti@bluewin.ch
www.scienceandnature.net

Email 3124

date: Wed Feb 6 13:36:32 2008
from: Phil Jones
subject: A warning for Feb 7-8
to: Robert Marsh

Bob,

Maybe you're the Robert Marsh giving a poster at a meeting of paleo types in London tomorrow - Burlington House. If not ignore this message. You'll get one good talk from Jim Hansen. You'll get one awful talk on the Friday from a Vincent Courtillot. If he lays into me, or says the world isn't warming you have my permission to go and put the boot it. Shouldn't be difficult. Have emailed Jim as well.

Vincent is a prat, but he's a well connected prat - French Academy and all that. He's been making life a misery for Eduoard Bard. I can't make it - I'm just trying to help Eduoard! If you're not the Robert Marsh, I can explain more next time we meet!

Cheers

Phil

PS Some background if you can read french !

Email 4791

date: Fri Feb 15 11:59:49 2008

from: Phil Jones

subject: Re: A warning for Feb 7-8

to: Robert Marsh

 
Bob,

Thanks for the abstracts. Courtillot can happily go off and reinvent the wheel.

Why dos he need daily data to look at large-scale temperature change?

Estimating global mean T is simple. Why does he need to complicate it !

Cheers

Phil

Note : les emails contenant des informations personnelles ou relevant uniquement de la discussion scientifique ou technique ne figurent pas dans le présent billet.
  

EN PLUS : Climategate 2 : Vincent Courtillot est "un imbécile bien introduit" selon Phil Jones