cc: tom crowley , "Rosanne D'Arrigo" date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:45:45 +0000 from: Thomas Crowley subject: Re: data request re: Gordon Jacoby to: Michael Purdy Michael Purdy wrote: > Dr Crowley - > > To the best of my knowledge, the data that you are requesting were > deposited in the NOAA data bank in August 2008. > > Mike Purdy > Dear Mike, thank you very much for your response. but I think Gordon is not being entirely frank with you. The data from individual trees were in fact deposited. But what people really want to know is what the lead author of such a project considers the best guess composite of the individual trees - none extend the entire length of the time series, and they must be spliced together, after making some not-so-simple corrections for the growth rate effect of the trees and the relative importance of "site effects" for different trees (only the person doing the field work really understands that). Gordon published his best estimate of the composite time series -- the one that is most valuable to other climate scientists (who, being less familiar with site idiosyncracies, might not make the right choice in producing their own composite). The analogy in geophysics might be when someone requests a composite seismic synthesis published on a particular site, and all you release is the individual seismic lines and effectively say - "go to it". Gordon has repeatedly refused to release this composite to other scientists - EXCEPT to fellow Lamont scientist Ed Cook. If Ed feels more comfortable with Gordon's composite than one he could produce on his won, surely other scientists even more removed from the procedures must feel the same way. It is therefore frustrating not only to the field that Gordon won't release his reconstruction to them, it is doubly frustrating because he has been inconsistent on this matter in giving it to Ed. I wrote a separate letter to Rosanne D'Arrigo on this matter yesterday, saying that I was at the end of my patience on this matter (it has been going on almost TEN YEARS!), and that I am going to write the Director of NSF on the matter. Gordon has still not met his obligations to the field and I intend to write that letter unless he releases it immediately. I am sorry it has come to this stage. I am not mad at you or Rosanne (she has been caught in the middle on this fracus). But the community deserves that composite and I feel the matter has come to the point where either Gordon releases the data or I go to the Director of NSF, with cc's to the head of Ocean and Atmsopheric Sciences, and head of Directorate. I apologize in advance for the action, because it seems very determined, but in fact it is really due to one very obstinate person - Gordon - and after ten years my patience is now at an end. Sincerely, Tom Crowley -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.