Climategate, page-2

This was an interesting email written by pascoe to Briffa from Uni of East Anglia. comes across as honest in what they are trying to establish. Pretty shows that even in 1996 they were unsure as to what they were dealing with.


The models' error was not, perhaps, too surprising. As Barnett points out, they do not include vital "forcing" mechanisms that alter temperature, such as solar cycles and volcanic eruptions. Nor can they yet mimic the strength of the largest year-on-year variability in the natural system, the El Nino oscillation in the Pacific Ocean, which has a global impact on climate.

For climatologists, the search for an irrefutable "sign" of anthropogenic warming has assumed an almost Biblical intensity.

Nonetheless, the findings should serve as a warning, Barnett says, that "the current models cannot be used in rigorous tests for anthropogenic signals in the real world". If they are they "might lead us to believe that an anthropogenic signal had been found when, in fact, that may not be the case."

The patterns of temperature change revealed by these different methods will probably always remain too fragmented to reveal unambiguous trends in global average temperatures. But this may not matter. "Frankly, global averages are not central to the issue of attributing climate change," says Barnett. "What will ultimately prove whether or not we are altering the climate will be the patterns of temperature change -- geographical patterns, seasonal patterns and vertical patterns." It is not how much it warms, but where, that will be vital.
some quotes below