date: Tue Jul 5 14:00:11 2005 from: Phil Jones subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: NEED HELP! to: "Neville Nicholls" Neville, Mike's draft reply - needs some work. Again keep top yourself. Nothing though that you wouldn't expect. The responses that Tim Osborn kept about E&E might be useful for your talk in Perth. They illustrate nicely that there is peer review and peer review ! Cheers Phil X-Sender: mem6u@holocene.evsc.virginia.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.1.1 Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:01:44 -0400 To: Tim Osborn From: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: NEED HELP! Cc: santer1@llnl.gov, wigley@ucar.edu, Keith Briffa , Phil Jones , Bradley Raymond , Hughes Malcolm X-Spam-Score: 1.7 X-Spam-Level: + X-Spam-Flag: NO Dear Tim, Here is a draft of my response to the congressional inquiry. Please let me know if you have any comments (in particular, if the way I have cited your submitted paper is ok??). thanks again for your help, mike At 08:35 AM 6/27/2005, Tim Osborn wrote: At 17:00 25/06/2005, Michael E. Mann wrote: Tim/Keith/Phil, Please see attached letter from the U.S. House republicans. As Tom has mentioned below, it would be very helpful if I can get feedback from you all as I proceed w/ drafting a formal response. Thanks in advance for any help, mike Dear Mike, Malcolm and Ray I was shocked to see how blatantly this committee has been subverted by the anti-greenhouse lobby. It is an outrageous request in many ways, not least in the amount of effort that it will take to gather together all the information and respond; e.g. point 4 -- provide all data, and (it seems) computer code, documentation, etc., related to any paper that you authored or co-authored! It would take me months to organize and document the 100s-1000s programs and 10s-100s of GB of data which have been used in papers with my name on! Even if the committee's review doesn't come to a conclusion that the anti-greenhouse lobby likes, they will still consider it a victory if they tie up your time for a number of months. Is there any way of reducing the efforts involved -- perhaps by requesting the committee to say which papers they wish to focus on? I haven't spoken to Keith or Phil yet, but I'm sure we will help where we can. Here are two specific things: (1) Tom mentioned a paper that we've submitted that has relevance to von Storch et al. (2004). It's still under review so I don't want it distributed far, but in case a copy hasn't found its way to you yet, the submitted manuscript is attached. The focus is not, in fact, on the von Storch et al. study, but is instead on the ECHO-G simulation that they used. We use MAGICC to show that the atypical ECHO-G behaviour can be mainly attributed to relatively large disequilibrium in the initial conditions and to the omission of any anthropogenic tropospheric sulphate cooling towards the end of the run. Our final conclusion on page 15 might be useful for you: we do not discount the bias in climate reconstructions suggested by von Storch, but we do show that the size of the bias would likely have been much smaller if ECHO-G didn't have the unrealistic behaviour that we identified. To emphasize again: we don't invalide von Storch's results, we just cast doubt on the magnitude of the bias. (2) Tom also suggests that you raise questions regarding the reviewing of papers that attack your work. This is a good idea. I can help with some insight into the "review process" (in the loosest sense!) that was used for M&M's first paper in Energy & Environment. I've attached an edited response from that "journal's" editor, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, to some questions I raised. The editor clearly indicates that there was very little peer-review. Publication was speeded up for purely political reasons, with scientific review losing in the trade off with policy. The limited review that apparently took place used reviewers who were selected because they were not "part of the anti-skeptics bandwagon" rather than for having the necessary expertise. From which I read that she only selected skeptics. I haven't forwarded this before, though I have alluded to these admissions from the editor to some of you, because the editor implied that she was responding in confidence. But in light of the challenge that you are now facing, I thought it would be fair to give you this information. Best wishes Tim From: "Sonja.B-C" Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 21:52:12 +0000 To: Tim Osborn Subject: Re: McIntyre-McKitrick and Mann-Bradley-Hughes Dear Tim Thanks for your considered reponse from Norwich.... I respond in CAPITALS IN TEXT. Please consider this for UEA eyes only; I am very honest... Sonja On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:44:23 Tim Osborn wrote: > Dear Sonja, > > Below are some responses to your message that was forwarded from the > climatsceptics mailing list... > > The interesting thing about their preliminary response, however, is that it > indicates that the difference in results might be fully explained by a > simple error in not using many of the early tree-ring data. If this is > confirmed by their fuller response, then, even though there may be some > problems with the proxy data used by Mann et al., it implies that these > problems do not actually make a lot of difference to the results - the main > difference comes from omitting the early tree-ring data. A paper that > identifies some problems with the proxy data used by Mann et al. would > still be interesting, but if these problems made very little difference to > the results obtained, then it would be of rather minor importance. ... I ALSO BELIEVE THAT MCINTYRE AND MCKINTRICK HAVE MORE CRITICISMS TO MAKE (HENCE THE EMAIL TO STEVE). (STEVE, NEXT TIME, IF THERE IS ONE, WE MIGHT LET MANN HAVE LOOK IN ADVANCE, BUT NO PROMISE...THIS TIME I WAS RUSHING YOU TO GET THIS PAPER OUT FOR POLICY IMPACT REASONS, EG. PUBLICATION WELL BEFORE COP9. TIM, HOW ELSE DO YOU THINK A SMALL JOURNAL RUN BY TWO PEOPLE VERY PART TIME CAN ATTRACT PAPERS OF BROADER INTEREST IF NOT BY DOING THINGS QUICKLY?... THE M&M PAPER WAS AMENDED UNTIL THE VERY LAST MOMENT. THERE WAS A TRADE OFF IN FAVOUR OF POLICY, AND THIS IS A DECISION I STAND BY. SCIENCE DEBATES SHOULD TAKE PLACE IN PUBLIC IF THEY HAVE MAJOR POLICY RELEVANCE. > > I will finish by asking a few questions about Energy and Environment and > the peer-reviewing of this paper, which I hope you will be able and willing > to answer. > > (1) Mann et al. assert that they were not given the opportunity to review > the McIntyre and McKitrick paper. It would be nice if you could confirm > that assertion, to ensure that we don't propagate any inaccuracies. You > might also want to comment on whether this is reasonable or not, for a > paper that is a direct response to their original paper. > TRUE, BUT I HAD NO IDEA THAT HE, OR SCIENTIFIC ETHICS, EXPECTED THIS... IN THIS CASE IT WAS ALSO ONE OF SPEED THINK HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE TO ALLOW RESPONSES, AND COUNTER RESPONSES.. IN MY VIEW IT IS STILL BETTER IF THIS TAKES PLACE IN PUBLIC SO THAT ALL CAN SEE THE ARGUMENTS USED IN HIGHLY CONTESTED AREAS. > (2) The McIntyre and McKitrick paper does not seem to have submission, > acceptance or publication dates on it. Does E&E not normally do this? If > you do, then I'd be interested to know what these dates are. NO WE DONT, WE ARE A TINY OUTFIT, LARGELY UNPAID, NO GLOSSY JOURNAL, AND WE HAVE NEVER WORKED TO SUCH DATES. THIS PAPER WAS AMENED UNTIL THE VERY LAST MINUTE AND I WATCHED IT BEING WRITTEN OVER SEVERAL MONTHS WITH A LOT OF HELP, AS ACKNOWLDEGED. I THEN SEND IT OUT TO ANOTHER 5 PEOPLE WHO ONLY had a few days to respond TO THE AUTHORS DIRECT, BUT ALL DID EXCEPT ONE WHO NEVER GOT IT...) . SOME WERE VERY SENIOR SCIENTISTS INDEED BUT WHO WERE CHOSEN BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT PART OF THE ANTI- SKEPTICS BANDWAGON. AT THIS STAGE I WANTED IMPROVEMENTS NOT FUNDAMENTAL CRITIQUE ...THE REAL DEBATE SHOULD COME AFTER PUBLICATION. THESE REPLIES CONTAINED NO RESERVATIONS RE PUBLICATION, ONLY ADMISSIONS THAT SOME THINGS HAD TO BE TAKEN ON TRUST AND THAT NONE HAD A LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL DATA. ---------------------- Dr.Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Reader,Department of Geography, Editor, Energy & Environment (Multi-science,[1]www.multi-science.co.uk) Faculty of Science University of Hull Hull HU6 7RX, UK Tel: (0)1482 465349/6341/5385 Fax: (0)1482 466340 Sonja.B-C@hull.ac.uk Dr Timothy J Osborn Climatic Research Unit School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK e-mail: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk phone: +44 1603 592089 fax: +44 1603 507784 web: [2]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ sunclock: [3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm ______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [4]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------