date: Thu Oct 7 16:12:40 2004 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: Lack-of-Progress Report to: Adrian.Simmons@ecmwf.int Adrian, Glad you've found out. We don't appear to have lost more than a week. This sort of thing is frustrating. Cheers Phil At 11:44 07/10/2004, you wrote: Everyone See below for the confused status of our JGR resubmission. Adrian -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: 2004JD005306 Decision Letter Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 11:40:12 +0100 From: Adrian Simmons Reply-To: Adrian.Simmons@ecmwf.int Organization: ECMWF To: kpumphrey@agu.org References: <1094741403@gems2> Edotorial Office JGR-Atmospheres I should be grateful if you would confirm that processing of my resubmission of a revised version of the manuscript referred to below is proceeding satisfactorily. I resubmitted it electronically on 1 October, and logged out after receiving the following sequence of messages: Waiting for Author Approval of Converted Files 2004-10-01 12:10:20 Author Approved Converted Files 2004-10-01 12:21:05 Initial Quality Control Started 2004-10-01 12:21:06 However, despite the above message that converted files had been approved, when logging in again today to check on progress, I found the status was "Waiting for Author Aproval of converted files". After approving a file (again), the status changed directly to Waiting for Reviewer Assignment 2004-10-07 06:18:49 I notice that the new (combined pdf) file I approved is different than that originally approved in that it does not now include the courtesy copy of figures in portrait format with legends attached. However, I am surprised that I was not notified by email that the combined file had been changed and required my further approval. Best regards Adrian Simmons jgr-atmospheres@agu.org wrote: Manuscript Number: 2004JD005306 Manuscript Title: Comparison of trends and variability in CRU, ERA-40 and NCEP/NCAR analyses of monthly-mean surface air temperature Dear Dr. Simmons: Attached below please find 2 reviews on your above-referenced paper. At least one of the Reviewers has raised questions and made suggestions for important revisions. Please consider the Reviewer reports carefully, make the necessary changes in your manuscript and respond to me, explaining how you have addressed these comments. In your Response to Reviewer letter, please include a statement confirming that all authors listed on the manuscript concur with submission in its revised form. The two reviewers have made some fairly substantial comments on the manner in which your results are presented and the emphasis that you place on the different aspects of your work. I am asking for major revisions to your paper, which are concerned more with the presentation than with the scientific details of your analysis. I agree with Reviewer #1 that your paper should emphasize more strongly the suitability of reanalyses for trend studies, rather than the comparisons between ERA-40 and NCEP/NCAR, but this would need some fairly subtle changes (maybe more in the abstract, introduction and conclusions than in the body of the paper). I will most likely, but not necessarily, ask one of the reviewers for a new assessment of your revised paper. The due date for your revised paper is October 9, 2004. If you will be unable to submit a revised manuscript by October 9, 2004, please notify my office and arrange for an extension (maximum two weeks). If we do not hear from you by the revision due date, your manuscript will be considered as withdrawn. When you are ready to submit your revision, please use the link below. <[1]http://jgr-atmospheres-submit.agu.org/cgi-bin/main.plex?el=A2Bc4BFBM2A5oLJ4I6A99ddCo p0U1ug4tsmG9WCngZ> (NOTE: The link above automatically submits your login name and password. If you wish to share this link with co-authors or colleagues, please be aware that they will have access to your entire account for this journal.) 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If you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to download the forms, it is available, free, on the internet at: [12]http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reviewer Comments Reviewer #1 Evaluations: Assessment: Category 2 Ranking: Very Good Annotated Manuscript: No Reviewer #1(Comments): This paper examines ERA-40 2-meter temperature analysis by comparing to CRU observation and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis. The cause of the fictitious trend is further examined by looking into the analysis guess and the model simulation forced by observed SST. The paper is acceptable for publication in JGR with minor revisions. Major Comments: I value this paper for its effort to analyze how the long term trend in the analysis is brought about by observation and analysis guess. It is quite convincing that the analysis trend is a result of bias in analysis guess and observation density. It is clear that ERA-40 is better than NCEP/NCAR reanalysis in several respects. However, I do not think the major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how good the ERA-40 is compare to some other reanalyses. The important theme should be how accurately reanalyses can detect long term trend, how reliable they are and how we can interpret the results. If comparison is the main purpose, I worry about the possibility of large amount of comparison papers coming out in Journals, which do not contribute significantly to the advance of atmospheric science. Apparently, the warming trend is simulated using atmospheric simulation. I am wondering how much the warming trend is the result of SST and how much is from change in CO2. The effect of SST is very important since analysis of SST in earlier years is not as accurate and may results in fictitious trend in SST, which in tern creates fictitious trend in atmospheric simulation, as well as in the atmospheric analysis. I wonder what is the effect of SST in understanding the change in analysis increments in the Southern Hemisphere (Australia and Antarctica). In this regard, the sea ice analysis also may contribute to the trends in southern hemisphere temperature trend. It is not clear how much CRU data were used in ERA-40. Since analysis is compared with CRU data, this point needs to be explained in more detail. Minor Comments: The NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 2 meter temperature may be the value of the 6 hour prediction. This depends on which field you obtained from CDC. Please confirm with the data supplier. This does not change the result of the paper, but fair comparison with ERA-40 may need to be made against ERA-40 background guess. Is the simulation made in ensemble mode? If so, is there a large spread of trend in the ensemble members? Reviewer #2 Evaluations: Assessment: Category 4 Ranking: Good Annotated Manuscript: No Reviewer #2(Comments): Review of Simmons et al.: Comparison of trends and variability in CRU, ERA40.... General This article provides considerable information related to intercomparisons of three important data sets that have been used to discern surface temperature changes. As such it provides a valuable contribution to furthering our understanding of how climate has varied and changed. It does suffer however, from a rather sloppy description of what is being intercompared and related inferences regarding the causes of the differences among the data sets. If the authors could address these issues I would recommend publication, but I emphasize to the editor, that as written, this article it not very effective in communication what was actually compared. Specific Comments Abstract --- There is no mention in the abstract of the confounding nature of the intercomparisons using ERA40 due to the inclusion of screen level temperatures in calculating surface temperatures and soil moisture. This is a major issue which the authors provide some 'hand-waving' arguments as to why they believe this is not a major issues, but since their arguments are not quantitative they are subject to skepticism. For this reason this should be mentioned in the Abstract to temper definitive conclusions related to the interpretation of the results of this work. Abstract and elsewhere --- the annoying use of terms like 'increments' appears without any definition of what the authors are talking about appears here and elsewhere in the text. This needs correction. Abstract and elsewhere --- another undefined term "ERA-40 analyses" is used in the abstract and somehow the reader is suppose to understand how this differs from the ERA-40 data assimilation without formal definitions. There is some attempt, although as a reader I feel I am guessing, to define what ERA-40 analyses means later in the article as related to running the model with greenhouse gas forcing, but the description is brief, and most readers would need to fully understand that this is what ERA-40 analyses mean, because the description does not seem consistent with the title ERA-40 analyses. Abstract ---- The simulation is described as matching quite well the CRUTEM2v data, but does not describe the time period. Overall --- There are some major question unaddressed by this analysis that I expect should have been tackled. For example, there is little attention in the text to day versus night temperature changes in the ERA-40 versus observational data sets. Although the Jones et al data do not resolve the day-night temperatures others data sets do and it seems rather fundamental to helping resolve the causes of any differences. The nighttime temperatures in many respects are divorced from the temperatures at the so called level 40 or 850 hPa temperatures and need to be addressed to confirm some the inferences the authors make regarding the changes in temperature throughout the planetary boundary layer in the ERA-40 as related to the interpretation of the Cai and Kalnay results. Page 4 --- 2nd paragraph --- not clear as to what is being compared as there is not quantitative estimate as to the impact of using the screen level temperatures in the estimate of soil temperature and moisture. How can the authors be certain that this does not have a major impact on screen temperatures. I would have expected some quantitative experiments to show this is of minor importance. Page 5 3rd paragraph --- Definitions lacking as to background forecasts and simulations. Page 5 last paragraph --- Again it is confusing to use the term analysed monthly anomalies and ERA-40 analyeses --- what's the difference. Sloppy use of the term analysed. Page 5 last sentence --- This is not true for the CRU data and all other observation data sets based on non synoptic data! Page 7 3rd paragraph --- Seems like a lot of hand waving here, without no supporting quantitative analysis. Page 8 last sentence --- Again the reader is left wondering what is being discussed (Analyses or simulations) and then what the difference is between the two. Page 9 2nd paragraph --- There is never an rationale provided as to why the authors choose to consider trends since 1979. I think I know why, but why make the reader guess? Page 11 1st paragraph --- Again no definition of what a background forecast of the data assimilation. It seems as if this paper was written for colleagues within the authors respective branches or Divisions and not the atmos sci community. Page 18 3rd paragraph --- The hand waving argument here is that since boundary layer temp trends in ERA-40 are similar after 1979 this implies the Kalnay & Cai results conclusions are in doubt. Again, however, the authors need to show that the use of the 2m screen temps for the soil moisture and temp do not effect much of the boundary layer trends. Day/night differences in trends may be key, but this is not smoking gun because greenhouse gas increases have been shown to lead to differential day night temp trends. -- -------------------------------------------------- Adrian Simmons Head of Data Division European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Shinfield Park, Reading, RG2 9AX, UK Phone: +44 118 949 9700 Fax: +44 118 986 9450 -------------------------------------------------- -- -------------------------------------------------- Adrian Simmons Head of Data Division European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Shinfield Park, Reading, RG2 9AX, UK Phone: +44 118 949 9700 Fax: +44 118 986 9450 -------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------