date: Tue, 6 May 2008 17:50:34 +0100 from: "Langenberg, Heike" subject: RE: Quick query regarding your report on NGS-2008-02-00218 to: Thanks Keith, that's easy enough. Best wishes, Heike ******************************************** Dr Heike Langenberg Chief Editor Nature Geoscience http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html -----Original Message----- From: K.Briffa@uea.ac.uk [mailto:K.Briffa@uea.ac.uk] Sent: 06 May 2008 17:45 To: Langenberg, Heike Subject: Re: Quick query regarding your report on NGS-2008-02-00218 Heike Sorry . Did not mean to cause this confusion . Please move the comments (by Dr.Tom Melvin ) of my colleague to the "to the editors" section as you suggest. My own comments (that I prefer to remain as anonymous) are sufficient to fullfil the review process. Hope this ok now. Best wishes Keith > Dear Keith, > > Thanks again for sending your report on this paper. We have now obtained > all the reports and are proceeding to make a decision. I am just writing > to let you know that we will not be able to use the comments made by > your colleague without him being identified. > > Given that they seem broadly in line with your concerns, it seems > easiest to just move those comments into "To the editors" and base our > decision on your own assessment. If you feel strongly that your > colleague's comments should included in addition to yours, please > identify him for us (of course, we will keep the identity confidential). > If so, please let us know immediately, since *given the delays that have > already occurred) we would like to make a decision as soon as possible. > > Best wishes, > Heike > > PS For your convenience, I attach your remarks to the authors as we > received them below. > > ******************************************** > > Comments on Nature submission by Yuliya Savval and Frank Berninger .( > NGS-2008-02-00218 ) > > Sulphur Deposition causes a large scale growth decline in boreal forests > in Eurasia. > > This paper is not suitable for publication in any journal in its present > form. Even by Nature standards it can only be described as opaque. There > is nothing like enough material or detail presented even in the > supplementary material to allow a full balanced assessment of the > general argument that Sulphur pollution is negatively impacting on pine > growth in the western part of the Eurasian boreal forest. > > My first observation is that it is odd that this paper makes no > reference at all to the widely cited paper by Briffa and colleagues > pointing out the decline in boreal forest growth since the 1950's > relative to the temperature trends that would be expected to produce > increased growth. This issue and the implications for Paleoclimate > studies are widely debated and given much provenance in the recent IPCC > reports. > > Putting this to one side Savval and Berninger choose to adopt some > dendroclimate techniques, the implications of which for their analysis > they then fail to discuss, and choose not to use other dendroclimatic > techniques or results of previous work, specifically the construction of > site chronologies and the descriptions of the climate responses of trees > in their regions. > > The findings of this paper depend critically on the methods used to > account for the expected reduction in radical ring width as a function > of stem expansion as the tree grows and in the validity of the > statistical model used to identify and remove the influence of climate > variability on ring width variation. > > The authors' use three forms to of the measurements they have extracted > from the publicly available tree ring data bank. In the first they use > the measurements directly. The early radial growth measurements over the > period 1920-1940 cannot be directly compared to measurements from the > same trees in later periods because of the well known thinning in the > measurements as tree age, so the ratio approach (see figure 2A) is > invalid. > > The use of negative exponential functions (figure 2B) to remove the > effect is prone to end fitting problems and effective response (in a > time-series filtering context) is unpredictable. Also it seems very > unlikely that the residuals from these functions could produce data > virtually identical to the original data as is implied in Figure 2. > Similarly the use of 'blind' regression to remove the climate effect is > undesirable (see earlier comments) and is not likely to have no effect > on the data trends as is implied in figure 2C. Then we come on to the > analysis of the association between tree decline and N and S pollution. > There is no clear statement of why the sites used were chosen. There is > strong Finnish/Western Siberia bias with 5 or 6 spatial outliers. > > It is worrying that associations (illustrated in figure 3) between tree > growth and pollutant loading are strongly influenced by 6 points showing > high numbers of trees with growth differences (between earlier and later > times) for low pollution loading. Without these points, then is no > relationship. We are not informed where these points are? We also do not > know what the interpretation of growth differences at each site means - > is it a consequence of poor detrending? Is it statistically significant? > To me figure 3 merely shows that high S generally means high N. In > figure 3B, just as many sites show positive as show negative residuals > for high N and S. > Similarly, in figure 4 the data shows barely significant results and for > the 'cold March' cases the result is highly leveraged by a single very > high S deposition site. No information is provided about this site. > > Overall I find the study opaque and the conclusions not demonstrably > supported by the analysis. > I recommend rejection. > > I also showed the paper (confidentially) to a colleague. His comments > are included below: > > > This paper presents an analysis of tree-ring data downloaded from ITRDB > and shows that there has been a recent decline in tree-growth rates > which the paper claims are related to sulphur deposition. > > Three measures are used to "remove ontogenic and environmental trends" > from ring-width measures in this paper all have serious flaws (see > below) invalidating the conclusion of reducing tree-growth rates in the > 20th century. The downward sloping index series generated from > ring-width measurements here will, of course, correlate with all sloping > series (of anything that can be measured), and the comparisons in this > document with sulphur and nitrogen deposition are meaningless. > > This paper is ill conceived and should be rejected. > > Detailed comments: > > The first measure, the mean ring width relative to the mean growth of > the 1920-1940 period, simply recovers the slope of decreasing ring width > with age commonly found in trees and is equivalent to using mean raw > ring width values. > > The second measure, negative exponential curves are fitted to series of > measurements and subtracted and the residuals are averaged at a site > level. This method produces series with an arbitrary slope of zero (the > segment length curse, Cook 1995) and as a result, index series are not > suitable for comparison with slowly changing (over the life of a tree) > variables such as CO2 increase, nitrogen deposition or sulphur > deposition. [Those measurement series to which a negative exponential > cannot be fitted can produce sloping index series but this paper fails > to mention the fitting of any alternative curves] > > The third measure, the residuals after multiple regression of mean > ring-width for each site against locally best-fitting months of climate > data for the site, will contain the age-related growth trend of > ring-width measurements. > > ******************************************** > Dr Heike Langenberg > Chief Editor > > Nature Geoscience > http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Briffa [mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk] > Sent: 11 April 2008 10:34 > To: Langenberg, Heike > Subject: RE: Nature Geoscience Review Request - manuscript > NGS-2008-02-00218 > > Heike > I do not know whether you sent official instructions for returning > this review - I can not find a "later" message from you. Attached is > my review (and some brief comments by a colleague) . Best wishes > Keith > > At 18:46 14/03/2008, you wrote: >>Dear Keith, >> >>Thanks very much for agreeing to review this paper for us (after Easter >>will be fine), and for the suggestions for complementary referees. With >>my next email, I will send a link to our webbased data base. >> >>Specifically, do you think the authors' interpretation of their >>tree-ring data is robust, including the corrections for age and climate >>variations? If so, do think the main finding regarding > continental-scale >>impacts of sulphur deposition on forest growth is new and important? Of >>course, similar effects have been found for the regional scale, but the >>authors argue that such a widespread has not been reported before. >> >>I look forward to hearing what you think. >> >>Best wishes, >>Heike >> >> >>******************************************** >>Dr Heike Langenberg >>Chief Editor >> >>Nature Geoscience >>http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html >> >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Keith Briffa [mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk] >>Sent: 14 March 2008 15:26 >>To: Langenberg, Heike >>Subject: Re: Nature Geoscience Review Request - manuscript >>NGS-2008-02-00218 >> >>Hi Heike >>yes I am happy to take a look at this one . As for other referees I >>would suggest John Grace at Edinburgh (University) , or perhaps >>Malcolm Hughes in Tucson (tree Ring Lab.) . >>hope a response after Easter will suffice >>cheers >>Keith >> >> >>At 14:10 14/03/2008, you wrote: >> >MIME-Version: 1.0 >> >Content-Type: multipart/alternative; >>boundary="_----------=_120550382054503" >> >X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 3.021 (F2.74; T1.23; A2.02; B3.07; Q3.07) >> >Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:10:20 -0400 >> >Message-Id: <49120550382020@rhwww4.nature.com.nature.com> >> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >> > >> >Dear Professor Briffa >> > >> >As you may have heard, we have recently launched Nature Geoscience, >> >a monthly research journal (please see our website >> >http://www.nature.com/ngeo for more >>information). >> > >> >A short manuscript has been submitted to Nature Geoscience, which we >> >were hoping you would be interested in reviewing. The manuscript >> >comes from Yuliya Savva and Frank Berninger and is entitled "Sulphur >> >deposition causes a large-scale growth decline in boreal forests in >> >Eurasia". Its first paragraph is pasted below. >> > >> >Would you be able to specifically assess the interpretation of the >> >tree ring data, as well as the novelty and importance of this >> >manuscript for us, within about two weeks of receiving the paper? >> > >> >If you are unable to help us with this, can you suggest any >> >alternative referees who would have an appropriate expertise? I >> >would also be grateful for any thoughts that you might have >> >regarding other referees who would be appropriate to complement your >> >expertise on this work. >> > >> >Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing >> >from you soon. >> > >> >Best wishes, >> >Heike Langenberg >> > >> >******************************************** >> >Dr Heike Langenberg >> >Chief Editor >> > >> >Nature Geoscience >> >>http://www.nature.com/ngeo/inde x >>.html >> > >> > >> >Sulphur deposition causes a large-scale growth decline in boreal >> >forests in Eurasia >> > >> >Yuliya Savva and Frank Berninger >> > >> >Even small changes in the productivity of boreal forest should have >> >a large effect on the carbon balance, but are challenging to detect >> >due to their long life span. Human activity has changed climate, >> >atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and the concentrations of >> >several pollutants over the last decades. Yet the combined effects >> >of these changes have not been quantified. Here we demonstrate that >> >the radial growth of one of the main forest species, Scots pine in >> >Northern Eurasia, has declined by 18% or 0.003 mm per year from the >> >1950s to the 1980s. This decrease was closely related to sulphur >> >depositions at the sites, while nitrogen depositions appeared to >> >increase growth. Additionally, sulphur deposition caused Scots pine >> >forests to be more sensitive to drought and cold springs. Although >> >the negative effects on the growth of plants from the relatively >> >polluted areas have been widely observed, the long-term effects of >> >sulphur emissions and its spread to ecosystems distant >> >from the point sources of pollution has never been previously >> >reported at such a large scale. The study is of fundamental >> >importance given that pollutant emissions into the atmosphere are >> >still rising in many regions. >> > >> >Please note that your contact details are being held on our >> >editorial database which is used only for this journal's management >> >of the peer review process. If you would prefer us not to contact >> >you in the future please let us know by emailing > geoscience@nature.com. >> > >> > >> >This email has been sent through the NPG Manuscript Tracking System >> >NY-610A-NPG&MTS >> >>-- >>Professor Keith Briffa, >>Climatic Research Unit >>University of East Anglia >>Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. >> >>Phone: +44-1603-593909 >>Fax: +44-1603-507784 >> >>http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ >> >> >>********************************************************************** * > ********* >> >>DISCLAIMER: This e-mail is confidential and should not be used by >>anyone who is >>not the original intended recipient. If you have received this e-mail > in error >>please inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other > storage >>mechanism. Neither Macmillan Publishers Limited nor any of its agents > accept >>liability for any statements made which are clearly the sender's own > and not >>expressly made on behalf of Macmillan Publishers Limited or one of its > agents. >>Please note that neither Macmillan Publishers Limited nor any of its > agents >>accept any responsibility for viruses that may be contained in this > e-mail or >>its attachments and it is your responsibility to scan the e-mail and >>attachments (if any). 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