Open Letter No. 1 to  all authors of the Jones et al 1986 papers and DoE documentation books.
Open letter question re Atlanta station data   Emailed 17 Dec 05
Dear Jones et al 1986 co-author,
Your participation in the landmark 1986 papers in Journal of Applied Meteorology
Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851–1984. P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, R.S. Bradley, H.F. Diaz, P.M. Kelly and T.M.L. Wigley, pages 161–179.
and,
Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851–1984. P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper and T.M.L. Wigley, pages 1213–1230.
Plus the hundreds of pages of  documentation in the DoE reports TR022 and TR027;
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, Santer B, Kelly PM, Bradley RS, Diaz HF, (1985) TR022 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Northern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098
and
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, (1986c) TR027 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Southern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098, must indeed have been one of the highlights in your scientific career.
I have been critical from 1991 of the methodology used in your global compilations refs above and with 2006 just around the corner I have started my '20th Anniversary Review" of the above papers at;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/cru86/
bearing in mind that not one Comment on your two papers was ever published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology.

I would like to ask you if you still stand by your selection of station data from Atlanta GA ?
Personally, I would have thought there was an abundance of evidence in the early 1980's that Atlanta was UHI affected  and that evidence has compounded since with NASA web pages portraying satellite thermal imagery defining the Atlanta UHI  which they characterise as Hotlanta. References can be seen on my new Blog;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/
A recent post discusses this very issue at;   "How did Jones et al 1986 and Jones 1994 select Atlanta ?"
Looking forward to your clarification and whether you still think Atlanta is a good example of  a station to contribute to a reliable long term temperature trend representative of land areas of the earth.

Best wishes,
Warwick Hughes

Dr Phil Jones reply
Date:       Tue, 20 Dec 2005 13:26:14 +0000
From:      Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To:      wshughes@iinet.net.au
Cc:      s.raper@uea.ac.uk, c.goodess@uea.ac.uk, M.Kelly@uea.ac.uk, wigley@ucar.edu, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, Henry.F.Diaz@noaa.gov
Subject:      Re: Open letter question re Atlanta station data
 Dear Warwick,
       The Atlanta station you refer to is one of 22 sites within
  the grid box (30-35N, 80-85W) where Atlanta is located. So
  even if the data have become more urban affected through
  time, the effect on the grid-box average would be minor. For
  the 1985/1986 papers/reports you refer to all the stations
  were assessed for homogeneity problems.

      I have looked at your blog. Thanks for pointing out that
  our Climate Monitor website has gone wrong. After each
  month's update, the sequence for the last 12 months gets
  redrawn. This is because the update of the latest month might
  include some additional (late) data for earlier months. There
  is no need to read any sort of conspiracy into this.  A program
  updates many CRU datasets every Sunday morning. Sometimes
  it occasionally reports errors which we then sort out. Sometimes
  though it thinks it has worked OK, but clearly hasn't. We will
  try and find out why it hasn't this time. Rest assured, none of
  the data for earlier months in 2005 have been altered, except
  for some back data for a few regions of the world.

  Regards
  Phil