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Philip D. Jones (born 1952) is a climatologist at the University of East Anglia.

Background

Jones holds a BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lancaster, and an MSc and PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His PhD was titled "A spatially distributed catchment model for flood forecasting and river regulation with particular reference to the River Tyne".

He is most notable for maintaining the time series of the instrumental temperature record; this work figured prominently in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers. He was director of the Climatic Research Unit and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. His research interests are instrumental climate change, palaeoclimatology, detection of climate change and the extension of riverflow records in the UK. He was a contributing author to the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report chapter 12 Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes. Together with Michael E. Mann, he has published on the temperature record of the past 1000 years. In late 2009, certain climate-change-related emails of his became controversial.

CRU email hacking and aftermath

On 21 November 2009, the Associated Press confirmed reports of a computer breach at the Climatic Research Unit in which documents and e-mails, including at least one written by Jones, were stolen and posted to the Internet. One e-mail in particular - referring to a "trick" with data to "hide the decline" - was widely circulated. In statements issued on 23 and 24 November 2009, Jones said that "he word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward", and commented that "to hide the decline" referred to the well known divergence problem with tree ring proxies. However, CRU had published a number of articles discussing this problem. On 1 December the UEA announced that Jones would temporarily stand aside as director until the completion of an independent review, resulting from allegations of inappropriate scientific conduct following the hacking and publication of emails from the Unit.

On 27 January 2010, the Information Commissioner's Office stated that the emails showed that requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by retired engineer David Holland were not dealt with properly by the UEA. Holland had been trying to get information giving support to his theory that the unit had broken IPCC rules in trying to discredit sceptic scientists. The Times said that the CRU had attempted to "thwart requests for scientific data and other information", and that evidence suggests that "senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests."

In a later interview Jones said that e-mails which appeared to suggest withholding data had expressed his irritation at the large numbers of requests which disrupted his team's work. He said "We were clearly being targeted" and that as most of the information requested was already available online, "I think they just wanted to waste our time". He now accepted that he should have taken the requests more seriously, and said "I regret that I did not deal with them in the right way. In a way, I misjudged the situation." He said that no data were destroyed. “We have no data to delete. It comes to us from institutions around the world. We interpret data. We don’t create or collect it. It’s all available from other sources." Jones added that "I am obviously going to be much more careful about my emails in future. I will write every email as if it is for publication. But I stand 100% behind the science. I did not manipulate or fabricate any data, and I look forward to proving that to the Sir Muir Russell inquiry."

Awards

• Hans Oeschger Medal from the European Geophysical Society in 2002 "for his remarkable contribution and sustained effort in reconstructing the climate of the last 250 years at the global and regional scales"
• International Journal of Climatology prize of the Royal Meteorological Society for papers published in the last five years in 2001
• Outstanding Scientific Paper Award by the Environmental Research Laboratories / NOAA for being a coauthor on the paper "A search for Human Influences on the Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere," by Ben Santer et al. in Nature, 382, 39-46 (1996)

Publications

• Jones, P. D.; Mann, M. E. (2004), "Climate over past millennia" (PDF), Reviews of Geophysics, 42 (RG2002): 42, doi:10.1029/2003RG000143, retrieved 2007-04-18
• Mann, Michael E.; Jones, Philip D. (2003), "Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia" (PDF), Geophysical Research Letters, 30 (15): CLM 5–1~5–4, doi:10.1029/2003GL017814, retrieved 2007-04-18
• Jones, P. D.; Moberg, A. (2003), "Hemispheric and Large-Scale Surface Air Temperature Variations: An Extensive Revision and an Update to 2001" (PDF), Journal of Climate, 16 (2): 206–223, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<0206:HALSSA>2.0.CO;2, retrieved 2007-04-18
• Jones, P. D.; Osborn, T.J. (2003), "Estimating Sampling Errors in Large-Scale Temperature Averages" (PDF), Journal of Climate, 10 (10): 2548–2568, doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<2548:ESEILS>2.0.CO;2, retrieved 2007-04-18 {{citation}}: |first3= missing |last3= (help); |first4= missing |last4= (help)

Notes

1. Jones, Phil. "Temperature". Climatic Research Unit. Retrieved 23 November 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
2. "Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis". UNEP/GRID-Arendal. Retrieved 23 November 2009.
3. ^ "Professor Phil Jones has today announced that he will stand aside as Director of the Climatic Research Unit until the completion of an independent review resulting from allegations following the hacking and publication of emails from the Unit" (Press release). Climatic Research Unit at University of East Anglia. 1 December 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-09.
4. ^ "Hackers leak climate change e-mails from key research unit, stoke debate on global warming". Associated Press. 2009-11-21. Retrieved 2009-11-24. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
5. "CRU statements". University of East Anglia. Retrieved 2010-01-09.
6. Harrabin, Roger (27 November 2009). "Inquiry into stolen climate e-mails". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
7. "CRU Update 1". University of East Anglia – Communications Office. 23 November 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
8. "CRU update 2". University of East Anglia. 23 November 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
9. Webster, Ben (2010-01-28). "Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data". The Times. Retrieved 2010-02-08. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
10. Girling, Richard, "The leak was bad. Then came the death threats", The Sunday Times, February 7, 2010.
11. "EGS Hans Oeschger Medallist - 2002". European Geosciences Union. Retrieved 23 November 2009.
12. "Nomination Form for Awards/Prizes of The Royal Meteorological Society". The Royal Meteorological Society. Retrieved 23 November 2009.

External links

• Home page
• BBC article on the temperature record of the past 1000 years controversy
• BBC article: Climate crisis: All change in the UK?

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