date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:16:50 +1300 from: "Glenn McGregor" subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript to: Phil Thanks for your response and willingness for me to get a third opinion. I will get onto this straight away as soon as I am back from walking the dog Best for the remaining period of work on UKCIP and your travels Glenn ----- Original Message ----- From: P.Jones@uea.ac.uk To: Glenn McGregor Sent: Tue Jan 13 08:10:25 2009 Subject: RE: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript Glenn, At home now. I won't be able to do anything for a few weeks, as we have to get the UKCP09 stuff done and some travel, so it can't do any harm. So go ahead. I do realize you can't read everything. I suspect one of the reviewers may have been Semenov. If so he is potentially biased, as his group didn't win the tender for the work! I don't think either reviewer realized the context of the work - this may be my fault. Cheers Phil > Dear Phil > > Thanks for your response to the decision on the WG paper. > > I am willing to admit that I may have got it wrong as far as the decision > goes but you must understand my position. As I am not able to read every > paper in detail I have to resort to taking a decision based on the > reviews. In this case both were rather negative, hence my decision. > > Based on your response what I would like to do, with your permission, is > to send the paper to a 3rd reviewer and request an opinion within 3 weeks. > If you would not like me to pursue this option then please let me know. > > Needless to say I am very conscious of the fact that you personally have > given wonderful service to IJoC and I would hope that this incident does > not damage the long term relationship you have with the journal. > > Best > Glenn > > ________________________________ > > From: Phil Jones [[1]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] > Sent: Tue 13/01/2009 01:25 > To: Glenn McGregor > Cc: C G Kilsby > Subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript > > > > Glenn, > I'm afraid these two reviews will definitely > discourage me from submitting more papers > to IJC! The two reviewers have not realized > the novelty of this paper. The WG > is fairly new and we are certainly not > re-inventing the wheel! We didn't do an > in-depth literature review because of space. If you were still > in the UK, you'd see this whole UKCIP08 package (now to be called > UKCP09) > including this WG coming out in the spring time (April/May). > To give you one example - all the papers referred to by the reviewers > only > work at sites with data. The WG in the paper works anywhere in the UK. > We've had the WG Report which will form part of the UKCP09 package > formally reviewed very favourably by three experts in the field. > You've missed a good paper for IJC here! Your reviewers have not > read it > carefully enough - nor understood what it was about. Maybe the latter is > my > fault, attempting to explain too much in a > single paper, but I would have hoped > for something more constructive. > > You can ignore this email if you want. I won't be submitting this > paper > to IJC again. > > On the other paper of mine you rejected a couple of months ago, I'm > going to re-submit that somewhere else now. These reviews were > constructive, > especially the positive one - that you chose to > ignore. At least the reviewers > understood what the paper was about. > > Cheers > Phil > > > At 10:51 12/01/2009, you wrote: >>12-Jan-2009 >> >>Dear Prof. Jones >> >>Manuscript # JOC-08-0245 entitled "Perturbing a >>Weather Generator using factors developed from >>Regional Climate Model simulations" which you >>submitted to the International Journal of >>Climatology, has been reviewed. The comments of >>the referee(s), all of whom are leading >>international experts in this field, are >>included at the bottom of this letter. If the >>reviewer submitted comments as an attachment >>this will only be visible via your Author >>Centre. It will not be attached to this email. >>Log in to Manuscript Central, go to your Author >>Centre, find your manuscript in the "Manuscripts >>with Decisions" queue. Click on the Decision >>Letter link. Within the Decision letter is a >>further link to the reviewer attachment. >> >>In view of the comments of the referee(s) your >>manuscript has been denied publication in the >>International Journal of Climatology. >> >>Thank you for considering the International >>Journal of Climatology for the publication of >>your research. I hope the outcome of this >>specific submission will not discourage you from submitting future >> manuscripts. >> >>Sincerely, >> >>Prof. Glenn McGregor >>Editor, International Journal of Climatology >>g.mcgregor@auckland.ac.nz >> >>NOTE FROM EDITOR >>I have taken the above decision as there appears >>to be a number of problems with the paper >>including a deficient review of the literature, >>few innovative aspects and a lack of analysis >>rigour. Sorry I could not be more positive. >>=========================== >> >>Referee(s)' Comments to Author: >> >>Referee: 1 >>Comments to the Author >>The paper describes how to link a weather >>generator, which was developed and published by >>the authors, with predictions from the regional >>climate model to provide end-users with daily >>climate scenarios for impact assessments as a >>part of the UKCIP08 project. This manuscript has major flaws. >>1. The problem of linking WG with the output of >>global or regional climate models (GCM/RegCM) to >>generate daily climate scenarios required by >>process-based impact models is not new. Wilks >>(1992) described the method of linking the WGEN >>weather generator based on a Markov chain model >>for precipitation with climate predictions >>derived from GCM. In Barrow et al (1996), a >>methodology of linking the LARS-WG weather >>generator based on series approach with HadCM2 >>was described and used in the European project >>on the assessment of climate change on >>agriculture in Europe. From 2002, high >>resolution daily site-specific climate scenarios >>based on LARS-WG and HadRM3 (UKCIP02) >>predictions were available for the academic >>community to study impact of climate change in >>the UK (Semenov, 2007). A similar work has been >>done for the Met&Rol generator in Check Republic >>(Dubrovsky et al, 2004). None of this works has >>been cited, and their manuscript authors are trying to "rediscoverEthe >> wheel. >> >>2. The methodology of assessing the performance >>of WG is well established. Statistical tests are >>used to compare probability distributions of >>observed and simulated weather variables (e.g. >>the K-S test), the t-test and f-test are used to >>compare observed and simulated means and >>variances, the extreme values theory is used to >>assess how well WG reproduces weather extreme >>events (Semenov et al, 1998, Qian et al 2004, >>2008; Kesley et al, 2005; Semenov, 2008). In >>this paper, authors used a "visualEcomparison >>to compare observed and simulated means by >>plotting data points on a graph. This is >>unacceptable, because no objective conclusions >>can be derived from such comparison. Proper >>statistical tests must be used instead. >>I recommend to reject this manuscript, it is >>well below the standard acceptable in IJC or any >>other refereed journals. The manuscript did not >>contribute to the area of research, and the >>methodology used for comparison is "naiveEand >>unaccepted in scientific publications. >>============================== >> >>Referee: 2 >>Comments to the Author >>All comments to the Author are found in the attached file. > > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >