Dear Forumites -- Since I am neither a dendrochronologist nor a tree physiologist, I have a
different take on this little brushfire we have going. Ideally, tree phys people should be
producing information (among other things) that dendrochronologists find useful. And
dendrochronologists should use the information within its limits and with enough
understanding to get it right. I don't think either of those things is occurring with as
much frequency as we would all like. I can understand Rod's annoyance at the massaging of
numerical data that dendrochronologists do. I am basically a non-mathematical biologist
mystified by such stuff, and I prefer handling measurements to deriving indices, or
whatever. When I run up against such derived data, I generally turn skeptical, because I
cannot verify the results from my own experience or intuition. On the other hand, when I
read papers by cambial physiologists like Rod I also get annoyed. That's because my biology
wants to integrate upwards, and all I get from cambial labs is biochemistry. So I'm in the
middle, where it gets lonely. I try not to get mad at anybody, though I do wish I didn't
find myself alone on the margins.
I find it frustrating that some dendrochronologists stubbornly see tree ring
characteristics as being affected by climate. They are not. They are affected by cambial
activity. Cambial activity is affected by internalities of tree behavior, mainly hormonal
and nutrient fluxes in the crown. Those things are largely influenced by climatic factors.
So there is quite a bit of slack between the climatic factor and the ring characteristic.
Is this just negligible static? I doubt it. I see this as an oversight by
dendrochronologists that weakens their credibility a tad among those knowledgable about
tree growth. I also have a quarrel with the dogma of dendrochology that the cambium changes
as the tree becomes senescent. I know of no data that trees senesce -- that is, that they
undergo changes due solely to aging. This started as forestry dogma, and was accepted by
tree-ringers, who then corrected for it. I'm practically the only one who has
systematically looked for evidence of senescence (with a Ph.D. student), and we could not
find any in young to ancient bristlecones. But tree physiologists do not generally look at
such issues because they have become progressively more reductionist. Nor do they try to
produce a theory of tree growth based, as it must be, on evolutionary theory. Such a theory
would be simple and general, and it would allow tree-ringers to approach rings with more
sympathy and understanding. That might not get you further, but it would improve your
character, I'm certain. And it would put all that assorted mishmash of tree phys data that
have accumulated since 19th century Germany into a context at last, and maybe liberate the
minds of all those tense physiologists out there with their ever-increasing inventories of
electronic sensors and analyzers. The world would be a better place with more people having
fun in the woods.                                      ---Ronald M. Lanner
--- [1]pinetree30@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: It's your Internet.
References
1. mailto:pinetree30@earthlink.net


Dear Professor Savidge, Hal Fritts's comments were, as always,
to the point and gracious. I
have much less patience with your ignorance and arrogance. The
sampling and statistical procedures involved in the production of a
cross-dated chronology are of course quite different to those used in a
randomised experiment, but they are none-the-less logical,
rigorous, science. We have been through all those arguments so many
times - you are wasting everyone's time.
John Ogden.
On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:16:20 -0700 "Harold C. Fritts"
wrote:
> Dear Ron,
> I respectfully disagree with you. We have reached out to you many times
> and find little but judgmental response. I have worked with this group
> for many years now and they are just as exact scientists as you.  They
> are interested in what the tree tells us about the earth and its history
> and not as interested and experienced as you in how the tree works.  I
> agree with you to the extent that we must understand how the tree works
> but I fear you have "created the reality that dendrochronologists are
> stupid and beneath your greatness" and that it will not ever change.
>
> People like you in the past such as Waldo Glock and Sampson at Berkley,
> CA made similar statements.  When I was a young man, I set out trying to
> examine their criticism objectively with both physiological
> investigations and statistical analysis.  I found that these criticisms
> could be met with data from solid physiological tests and even though
> those practicing the science at that time were astronomers, not
> physiologists.  There are talented and insightful people in other
> sciences outside of plant physiology.
>
>  I am sorry for all of our sakes. as the future holds many possibilities
> with many experts contributing to the future of science.  If you could
> only get outside the judgmental ideas that you hold about us, I think
> you might be very surprised and pleased.
>
> Yes, I think many in this group oversimplify the response of the tree,
> but in the same way you oversimplify the practice of dendrochronology.
> We all have much to learn from each other, but calling each other names
> doesn't further anyone's science.
>
> I believe science is embarking on a course of greater cooperation among
> different disciplines.  This implies respect and cooperation in both
> directions.  We welcome your interest in dendrochronology but are
> saddened that you have so little respect for our integrity and honesty.
> It would be more appreciated if we could together work for a better
> future, not just quarrel, call each other names and delve on what is
> wrong with the past.
>
> Sincerely, Regretfully and Lovingly,
> Hal Fritts
>
> P.S.
> One other comment to my fellow scientists.  I agree with Frank that I
> have made only a start at understanding the basis for tree ring
> formation.  It will take much more work in physiology and modeling. In
> current discussions and debates on the importance of physiology and
> process modeling in dendrochronology, understanding plant processes
> often takes secondary impotence in the eyes of many
> dendrochronologists.  I think this will change because I believe in the
> integrity of my colleagues, but I sometimes wonder how long this will
> take.  I had at one time hoped that I might see it happen.  We can
> answer such criticism, but not until we investigate further how the tree
> responds to its environment and how the tree lays down layers of cells
> we call the tree ring. Physiologists outside dendrochronology have
> little inclination to do it for us as this message reveals.  We can and
> must do it ourselves by including, welcoming and funding physiological
> investigation in tree-ring research.
> HCF
>
>
> Rod Savidge wrote:
> >
> > To the Editor, New York Times
> >
>   Indeed, its activities
> > include subjective interpretations of what does and what does not
> > constitute an annual ring, statistical manipulation of data to fulfill
> > subjective expectations, and discarding of perfectly good data sets when
> > they contradict other data sets that have already been accepted.  Such
> > massaging of data cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered
> > science; it merely demonstrates a total lack of rigor attending so-called
> > dendrochronology "research".
> >
> > I would add that it is the exceptionally rare dendrochronologist who has
> > ever shown any inclination to understand the fundamental biology of wood
> > formation, either as regulated intrinsically or influenced by extrinsic
> > factors.  The science of tree physiology will readily admit that our
> > understanding of how trees make wood remains at quite a rudimentary state
> > (despite several centuries of research).  On the other hand, there are many
> > hundreds, if not thousands, of publications by dendrochronologists
> > implicitly claiming that they do understand the biology of wood formation,
> > as they have used their data to imagine when past regimes of water,
> > temperature, pollutants, CO2, soil nutrients, and so forth existed.   Note
> > that all of the counts and measurements on tree rings in the world cannot
> > substantiate anything unequivocally; they are merely observations.  It
> > would be a major step forward if dendrochronology could embrace the
> > scientific method.
> >
> > sincerely,
> > RA Savidge, PhD
> > Professor, Tree Physiology/Biochemistry
> > Forestry & Environmental Management
> > University of New Brunswick
> > Fredericton, NB E3B 6C2
> >
> > >X-Sieve: cmu-sieve 2.0
> > >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4024
> > >Importance: Normal
> > >Date:         Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:24:03 -0500
> > >Reply-To: grissino@UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU
> > >Sender: ITRDB Dendrochronology Forum
> > >From: "David M. Lawrence"
> > >Subject:      History and trees
> > >Comments: To: scitimes@nytimes.com
> > >To: ITRDBFOR@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> > >
> > >I was rather horrified by the inaccurate statements about tree-ring
> > >dating that you allowed to slip into print in the interview with Thomas
> > >Pakenham today.  Tree-ring science is an exact science -- none of the
> > >data obtained from tree rings would be useful if the dates were
> > >inaccurate.  Dendrochronologists don't say much these days about how old
> > >trees are because they are interested in more important questions --
> > >such as "What can the tree rings tell us about our planet's past?"
> > >
> > >You at The New York Times should know something about tree rings.  A
> > >check on Lexis-Nexis shows that since 1980 you have run more than 100
> > >stories in which the words "tree rings" appear in full text.  Some of
> > >the stories are irrelevant.  But most are not, such as the July 13,
> > >2002, story in which you misspell the name of Neil Pederson at
> > >Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, or the March 26, 2002, story about a
> > >medieval climate warming detected in tree-ring data.  I do not remember
> > >tree-ring dating being labeled an "inexact" science in stories like
> > >that.
> > >
> > >Did Walter Sullivan, who wrote a story about tree rings and drought on
> > >September 2, 1980, ever question the "exact" nature of tree-ring dating?
> > >He didn't seem to question it on June 7, 1994, when he wrote a story
> > >about ash from Santorini and said that the ash cloud may have "persisted
> > >long enough to stunt the growth of oak trees in Irish bogs and of
> > >bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California, producing
> > >tightly packed tree rings."  You really do have to know when those rings
> > >were laid down before you can associate them with a specific volcanic
> > >eruption.
> > >
> > >I tell you what.  I am a member of the National Association of Science
> > >Writers as well as a working dendrochronologist and occasionally paid-up
> > >member of the Tree-Ring Society.  If you feel the need for a refresher
> > >course on tree-ring dating, I'll be more than happy to try to introduce
> > >you to knowledgeable practioners in you neighborhood, such as Neil
> > >Pederson (not Peterson) at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  (It's
> > >actually a local phone call for youse guys.)
> > >
> > >Sincerely,
> > >
> > >Dave Lawrence
> > >
> > >------------------------------------------------------
> > >  David M. Lawrence        | Home:  (804) 559-9786
> > >  7471 Brook Way Court     | Fax:   (804) 559-9787
> > >  Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: dave@fuzzo.com
> > >  USA                      | http:
> > >------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > >"We have met the enemy and he is us."  -- Pogo
> > >
> > >"No trespassing
> > >  4/17 of a haiku"  --  Richard Brautigan
>
> --
> Harold C. Fritts, Professor Emeritus, Lab. of Tree-Ring Research
> University of Arizona/ Owner of DendroPower
> 5703 N. Lady Lane, Tucson, AZ 85704-3905
> Ph Voice: (520) 887 7291
> ~hal
----------------------
John Ogden
j.ogden@auckland.ac.nz


Dear Tim,
I'm really sorry I've been so slow in responding to your request for input to
the CRU strategic review. Life has been rather hectic over the past few months.
I hope to send you my response to your questionnaire by no later than the end of
this month. Would that still be o.k?
Cheers,
Ben
===========================================================================
Tim Osborn wrote:
>
> Dear Ben,
>
> I've not had time to speak with Phil recently, so I don't know how things
> are with you at the moment, work-wise and home-wise.  But I hope all is
> well.  The (rather formal, sorry) message below is a follow-up to a
> letter/questionnaire that I sent in the summer.  It would certainly be good
> to obtain your input, so if you have time...!
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
> --------------------------------
> Dear Dr. Santer
>
> I wrote to you in the summer in my role as leader of the Climatic Research
> Unit's (CRU) strategic review team, as part of an exercise to obtain
> external input to our review process.  This exercise was reasonably
> successful, with a 45% response rate.  Despite this response rate, there
> are still some gaps in the "categories" that we hoped to obtain input
> from.  We have analysed the responses, together with our own internal
> assessments, and are now looking to fill in some of the remaining gaps.
>
> I am contacting you again in the hope that you might be able to assist us
> in our review process, via the attached questionnaire.  As stated in my
> original letter, we are aware that this process is primarily for our
> benefit, rather than yours, so we greatly appreciate any time that you
> could spend in assisting our review.
>
> Some respondents said that they would prefer to have received an electronic
> version of the questionnaire, and so I have decided to attach a Microsoft
> Word document containing the questionnaire that I sent to you in the summer.
>
> If you have any questions about the review process, or would prefer to
> provide your opinions over the telephone, then please phone me on 01603
> 592089.  We will be grateful for whatever level of input you feel able to
> provide.
>
> Best regards
>
> Tim
>
> [Dr. Tim Osborn, Chair of Strategic Review Team]
>
>   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                                Name: questions for Santer.doc
>    questions for Santer.doc    Type: Microsoft Word Document (application/msword)
>                            Encoding: base64
>
>    Part 1.3Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PCMDI HAS MOVED TO A NEW BUILDING. NOTE CHANGE OF MAIL CODE!
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-7638
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear Keith,
Do not be embarassed. This  situation is very humorous and I am very
glad to smile. It happens.
Thank you very much for your time series.
I would like  to analyse  specta characteristics  of  summer temperatures ( your
series) and winter  temperature series  using Dansgaard's time series  for
the same period ( since 550s). It seems to me    the temperature data of Arctic basin is
the
most pronounced indices illustrating of   long term climate oscillations.
Best wishes
Leonid
----- Original Message -----
From: [1]Keith Briffa
To: [2]L.B. Klyashtorin
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Reconstruction etc.
I am very embarrassed as I have just realized I sent the data (a couple of weeks ago at
least !) to the wrong person (someone called Leonid Polyak ) by mistake. He  wanted
polar Urals data. I now attach the file with the Nature temperature reconstruction.
First number is the number of values , then subsequent lines contain the date in the
first column (years AD) and the anomalies in the second (as described in the paper).
Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keith
At 10:45 PM 11/18/02 +0300, you wrote:
Dear Keith,
I apologise for persistens but I really need in  the time series I requested from you
and I will very grateful to you  for these materials which you so kind promised send to
me .
I hope receive it from you yet, although I  have not reply from you to my  two last
messages.
Yours sincerely
Leonid Klyashtorin
----- Original Message -----
From: [3]L.B. Klyashtorin
To: [4]Keith Briffa
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Reconstruction etc.
Dear Keith,
I apologize for disturbing you but I  did not received  the data  you promised  to send
me yet.
I would be very grateful to you for these time series.
Using your kind permission (from October 22) to remind you if  these date  do not arrive
I hope to receive it  from you....
Sorry for inconveniences and thank you in advance
Leonid
----- Original Message -----
From: [5]Keith Briffa
To: [6]L.B. Klyashtorin
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Reconstruction etc.
Leonid
Sorry not to respond
I will search out the tree-ring series (ring width and density ) and the numbers for the
reconstruction and send them as soon as I can get to it. Remind me in a couple of days
if they do not arrive. Cheers
Keith
At 02:17 PM 10/22/02 +0400, you wrote:
Dear Dr Briffa,
Unfortunately I  did not receive  reply on my first message sent to your address
by October 8.
I apologize for  disturbing you again but I  will be very grateful  to you
for sending me  the address of  web site where I  can  find the data of tree ring
reconstruction of the summer temperature.
I  also  very interested in  receiving data published in one of your et al.  old paper:
"A 1400 year tree ring record of summer temperature  in Fennoscandia,1990, Nature.vol
346, 2 August 1990."
The time series of Pinus silvestris published  at Fig 2 a is very interesting for my
work on the dynamics
climate-linked fisheries of Northern Hemisphere.
I would be very grateful to you for your reply.
Best regards
Leonid Klyashtorin
----- Original Message -----
From: [7]L.B. Klyashtorin
To: [8]Briffa Keith R.
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 4:58 PM
Subject: Fw: Reconstruction etc.
I am Leonid Klyashtorin from Federal Institute for Fisheries and
Oceanography (VNIRO),Moscow,Russia.
The last 6 monthes  I  was National Research  Council Senior
Associate and  worked as Visiting Scientist in  the
Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory (PFEL),
NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service,
Monterey , CA on the   item  "Climate and Fisheries".
My paper "Climate change and long -term fluctuations of commercial
catches:the possibility of forecasting"  published recently as a separate
broshure, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No 410,
pp 86, 2001, and is rather popular among fisheries specialists.
It gives insight of world major fisheries dynamics and contains
forecast to the next 10-20 years. ( the Abstract is attached, PDF file  of
all  paper  also is available)
I have  read of your  and  T. Osborn very interesting and so useful paper
"Blowing Hot asnd Cold.." in Science, v.295.,2002.
Your results clearly shows  that main conception
of IPCC experts  about unicity of Global Warming  events in
20-century  is erroneous and now  the additional data appear on the natural
long term cyclic  climate change at least  for the last 2000 years .
My work  on the "Climate - Fisheries" connected  with questions of Climate
Change  and ,naturely,  touches of Global Warming Problem.
Me and my colleague from Institute of Physics of the Earth of Russian
Academie of Science  recently  submitted  our paper "On the coherence
between dynamics of the  world fuel consumption and global  temperature
anomaly". in the International Journal " Natrural  Hazards" .
The paper  is now  under reviewing. (The Abstract is attached.)
Now me and a few my collegues from US  are in process of writiing
book dedicated of Climate- Fisheries problem and we would like  use
the data on the  tree -rings anlysis showing cyclic  character of
long-term climate changes.
I will be very grateful to you  for receiving
from you ( if possible) the time series of annual reconstructed
temperature anomaly from Figure (Esper02) and address of website,
where these data are available.
Thank you in
advance
Best regards
Leonid Klyashtorin
--
Professor Keith Briffa,
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Phone: +44-1603-593909
Fax: +44-1603-507784
[9]
--
Professor Keith Briffa,
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Phone: +44-1603-593909
Fax: +44-1603-507784
[10]
References
1. mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk
2. mailto:klyashtorin@mtu-net.ru
3. mailto:klyashtorin@mtu-net.ru
4. mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk
5. mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk
6. mailto:klyashtorin@mtu-net.ru
7. mailto:klyashtorin@mtu-net.ru
8. mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk
9.
10.
11.


Dear all
I went to this meeting in London yesterday - which was useful.  Julie will photocopy my
notes/the overheads for you some time this week (if she doesnt have time, I'll do it when I
get back next week).  In the meantime, here are my main impressions/thoughts from the
meeting.  (Incidentally, Alex Haxeltine was due to go from UEA, but didnt turn up. Not sure
who the other UEA people were! There was no list of participants.) Maybe we should get
together (next week some time?) once you've had chance to look at some of this.
The Commission (EC) seems to be favouring smaller projects, e.g., typically 10 million
Euro. Though it is up to proposers to define the necessary 'critical mass'.
UKRO seem quite wary of Networks of Excellence (NoE), e.g., warning of potential conflicts
of interest with institutions. As with projects, smaller size seems to be in favour. An
UKRO analysis suggests an NoE of 150-400 researchers would maximise the amount of money
received per researcher.
Research activities can now be funded in NoE (the EC has changed its mind on this in the
last month), but only if focused on integration.
The EC wont be proposing indicators of integration for NoE - the proposals should explain
how this will be 'measured'.
Consortium quality seems to be an important concern for the EC, i.e., having the right
people for the job and ensuring everyone has a clear role.  In our rush to get a 'critical
mass', I'm concerned that the GENIE consortium may appear too much as 'all our friends'.
One possible strategy which UKRO seemed to think quite good for people, would be to put in
a proposal from 6-8 key partners, indicating for which activities additional partners will
be brought in at appropriate points.  The EC will be providing formal procedures for these
'internal project' calls.
It is unlikely that the new online proposal preparation tool will be ready for the first
call, but electronic submission (on CD) should be possible.  Any paper submissions will be
scanned.
Evaluation will be by electronic means initially, with possibility of proposers (and
evaluators?) being invited to hearings in Brussels prior to panel meetings.
No signatures are required for the proposals (though a password/username will be required
by co-ordinators to access the online system).  Some institutions/consortia are apparently
drawing up pre-consortia agreements or letters of intent/memorandum of understanding.
The guide for proposers is currently only in very rough draft.
There will be a second 'EOI' type exercise at the end of 2003/early 2004.  This could lead
to changes in the indicative themes for 2004.
UKRO is not keen on UK institutions using consultants for project management - we should be
building our own capacity.
Proposals should be written for the informed lay person. It is best if they are not
obviously written by one person - better to show joint effort/co-ordination at an early
stage.
Redundancy costs (i.e., costs of implementing the new fixed-term regulations) can be
included for research staff.
The EC aims to audit all FP6 projects (because there will be fewer of them).
Recognition of the ERA and policy links will be important for the EC. (The ERA includes
references to developing long-term careers for research staff and increasing the
involvement of women - so maybe we should be thinking of some activities to address these
issues.)
IPR will be an important issue in FP6 - need to get expert advice (e.g., what happens if
consortium changes over course of project).
Consortium agreements will be compulsory.
The proposal forms (for IPs anyway) are relatively simple, e.g., only need to cost four
different types of activity.
Clare
Dr Clare Goodess
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
UK
Tel: +44 -1603 592875
Fax: +44 -1603 507784
Web: [1]
Editor "Climate Research" ([2]
Southern Africa crisis appeal: [3]
References
1.
2.
3.


Dear friends,
I assume many of you have followed the development of the work
programme for FP6, which have been quite dramatic at times for our
field. The end result is not particularly good, and the whole area of
Global Change has been cut by comparuison with FP5. I talked with
Anver Ghazi last week, and what I know stems from this and from the
Nov. 18 version of the work programme.
The will be no opening for climate dynamics in the first call (Dec. 17).
The second call due in June /July with a deadline in October 2003
will include some paleoclimate openings:
- STREPS for novel paleoreconstructions methods (i.e. a few of the
normal projects of previous FPs) - but remember: 75% of funding goes
to New Instruments: Integrated Projects and NoEs).
- Hot spots in the climate system, including the thermohaline
circulation and the Arctic.
Brussels will not issue anything now about the thrird call, but
according to Ghazi they plan to invite for either an NoE or an IP in
climate dynamics with emphasis on past climate change at that point.
Call will be in 2004. But things can change with this call.
Thus we have quite some time to discuss if we shall go forward with
DOCC or go for IP. The overall size of the IPs have been
substantially reduced, so if we try an IP or an NoE either will need
to be more focussed in terms of science and in terms of partnership
than our Expression of interest.
Ceers,
Eystein
--
______________________________________________________________
Eystein Jansen
Professor/Director
Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and
Dep. of Geology, Univ. of Bergen
Allégaten 55
N-5007 Bergen
NORWAY
e-mail: eystein.jansen@geol.uib.no
Phone:	+47-55-583491  -  Home: +47-55-910661
Fax: 	+47-55-584330
-----------------------
The Bjerknes Training site offers 3-12 months fellowships to PhD students
More info at: www.bjerknes.uib.no/mcts
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dear John and Mike
It was over two years ago that we first briefly discussed the opportunity to
develop climate change research funding in Scotland using a grant to HEI's
from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC). My Centre, CECS,
has been successful with such grants in the past. Last year there were no
such grants but the opportunity has now arisen again. The funding is quite
large (0.5 - 1.5 million over up to 4 years). With support from the three
main agencies in Scotland I am keen to develop such a research proposal and
will be entering the internal competition (within the University) shortly.
I am keen to develop a strong link/cooperation with the Tyndall Centre and I
would like to explore ways in which this might be achieved. Last week I
believe that you were busy with your Advisory Board. I would be very keen to
talk with you on the phone about this as soon as possible. Please let me
know if there is a suitable time when I might phone or feel free to contact
me.
Best wishes
Andy
E-mail from:
Dr Andy McLeod
Director
Centre for the study of Environmental Change and Sustainability (CECS)
The University of Edinburgh
John Muir Building
The Kings Buildings
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JK
Scotland
Tel: 0131 650 5434 (direct)
Tel: 0131 650 4866 (office)
Fax: 0131 650 7214
E-mail: andy.mcleod@ed.ac.uk


Thanks very much Tim,
Your comments are extremely helpful.
I'm open to eliminating the comparison w/ Esper et al --but lets see if there is a
consensus of the group as to what to do here. We're anxiously awaiting comments from the
others...
thanks again,
mike
p.s. Scott can be reached at either U.Va or U.RI email equally well (I believe the former
is forwarded to the latter)..
At 12:16 PM 1/6/2003 +0000, Tim Osborn wrote:
Dear Scott and Mike,
Over the Christmas break I (finally!) had time to read the RegEM manuscript in detail.
Phil had already read and annotated a copy - so I've added my annotations to that and
will mail it to you today.  Mike asked for comments to go to Scott, so please tell me
which address I should use (Rhode Island or Virginia?).
I spoke to Keith and he has partly read it too, and will provide separate comments soon.
Overall, I think the paper is a very nice piece of work and I'm pleased to be involved
with it.  The results regarding robustness with respect to proxy data, method, region
and season are definitely good to publish.
Among the many comments annotated on the manuscript, a few are repeated here so that all
authors may respond if they wish:
(1) Given the overwhelming number of values in the Tables, I suggest halving them by
dropping all the CE values (keeping just RE values).  As the paper points out, getting
the verification period mean right is rewarded by RE but not by CE.  Since we are
interested in changes in the mean, I don't think that's a problem.  CE is fine in
addition, but dropping it would provide benefits of reducing manuscript size - and
especially the size of the tables.
(2) The "mixed-hybrid" approach sounds dubious to me - more justification/explanation of
why it is needed (and hence why it captures more variance than the simpler splitting
into high- and low-frequency components method).
(3) It is not clear to me that the paragraph and figure on the comparison with Esper et
al. are either correct or necessary.  They also are problematic because it would appear
that we (Briffa & Osborn) were contradicting our earlier paper when in fact we aren't.
The paper is already long and to remove these parts would therefore be helpful anyway.
The comparison with Esper et al. is important - but much better dealt with in a separate
paper where it could be developed in more detail and with more room to explain the
approach and its implications.
(4) I still hope to write up some more detailed comparisons of the reconstructions using
just the MXD data but different methods and will let Mike/Scott know my plans on this
soon.
Happy new year to you all.
Tim
Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site:
University of East Anglia __________|   [1]~timo/
Norwich  NR4 7TJ         | sunclock:
UK                       |   [2]~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
[3]
References
1. ~timo/
2. ~timo/sunclock.htm
3.


Tim,
As promised some comments on the paper.
General: It is very good, just what is needed and puts the last 4 years of
debate into the right context.
General: why consistently 'climate changes' rather than the more usual
'climate change'?
Abstract, line 10: why only quote as high as 0.99 and not the lowest
correlation (which actually is more to the point - it is still very good
after the 2020s, even for precip).
Abstract, lines 12-13: as worded this does not quite follow, although I see
from later that the ellipses used are at 95% confidence.  Just because they
fall outside natural variability does not *in itself* prove they are stat. sig.
p.2, lines 17-19 (and also several places on p.4): impacts are mentioned,
but nothing said about adaptation.  It is really adaptation
actions/decisions that are crucial, impacts are only one way to get
there.  Alter the focus.
p.2, line -10: add 'necessarily' between 'not' and 'be'.  AOGCMs may
actually do not so bad a job on occasions about climate change (relative
changes for example), so don't completely dismiss this one.
p.5, section 2: general point: there is no list or table or statement about
exactly what these 17 experiments are.  The models are listed, but not the
experiments.  e.g. which SRES scenarios did which modelling group and how
many ensembles?  For the lay person this is not obvious.
p.7, top line: you should perhaps make the point that simple bias indices
such as these may partly be explained by elevation offsets (model height
vs. real height).  It is to my mind a mitigating factor than can work in a
model's favour (not always).  It should be mentioned, because the biases
may not be due to just dumb models, but due to simple resolution issues
that can be adjusted easily.  A similar point perhaps applies in the next
para. about ocean/land boundaries.  OK, you could say this just shows how
bad models are, but it perhaps gives people a poorer view of the model
physics and credibility than is truly needed.  Another point to mention in
this para about precip. is the obvious point about decadal natural
variability.  It's a tall order to expect the models to get the 1961-90
monthly mean precip. exactly right, owing to internal variability.  Indeed,
give such variability can be plus/minus 10-20% or more it would be
astonishing if they matched.  Be generous to models I say.
p.9, middle - interesting point about ECHAM4 and NCAR masks!!
p.15, para 2: didn't you have A1FI available from Hadley?  Surely it could
have been used to test this?  Last sentence in this para:  why 'evidently
conform'?
p.16, last line: interesting point here:  if you claim the pattern-scaling
didn't work for the 2020s because of nat var (S/N ratios) then why actually
should we go with the raw model results anyway - certainly if it is the
signal we are interested in (and not the noise), it suggests the raw 2020s
models results are misleading us!  This is a rather circular argument I
realise but the bottom line point again comes back to S/N ratios and the
role of nat decadal variabiliy, esp. for precip.  Are we going to recommend
adaptations to noise or to signals - and why?
p.17, middle para:  what about mentioning climate sensitivity here?  I know
its out of vogue now, but PCM and NIES differences are explained by overall
model sensitivity aren't they.
p.17, para 4:  this point about where agreement occurs between models is
important.  Some people - I heard Wigley do it recently - write models off
at regional scales re. precip changes because they all disagree.  They do
for some regions, but not all and where we think we have physical grounds
to accept agreement as legit. (e.g. UK; cf. UKCIP02 scenario metholody)
then we should be confident to say so.
p.17, line -7: why use 'forecasting' here?  Could confuse some people.  The
old argument about terms I guess.  And again top line on p.18 is dangerous
- we can "predict" nat. variability in a stochastic sense using
ensembles.  Change the wording.
p.18, line 9: not only are they difficult to forsee, they are simply
unforseeable to a significant extent because it is we who determine them; I
prefer to make the distinction between different types of prediction
problem more explicit.
p.18, lines 19-20: I don't like the use of 'truth' and 'precise' here.  It
implies a strong natural science view prediction and the competence of
science (modellers!) which I think should be softened.
p.18, para 4:  the inter-model differences bit being as large as the
inter-scenario differences.  Again at least mention the role of nat var
here - some of these inter-model differences *must* be due to nat var, not
simply models not able to agree with each other.
p.19, para 1:  I think the stabilisation case should be mentioned
here.  What about pattern-scaling stab scenarios?  As I hear it from DEFRA
and Hadley here in UK this was a big issue at the TGCIA meeting.  Make a
comment at least; I think in principle p-scaling is probably OK (within
some limits) even here.  I think you should make reference to some of Tim
Mitchell's work here (and/or elsewhere) since he has looked at some of
these things too.  His thesis or his CC paper perhaps.
And finally, w/o sounding as self-serving as Tom Wigley, it would be nice
if you could reference (perhaps in section 3.3) the Hulme/Brown (1998)
paper in CR which was the first time I published scatter plots in this form
for GCMs results - and possible the first time this form of presentation
had been used anywhere (but I stand corrected of course; maybe I simply
picked it up from someone else).
So there it is: a great piece of work and a good write up.  I don't know
Kimmo but pass on my congratulations to him.  I'll look out for it on the
web site.
Best wishes,
Mike
At 13:42 13/01/03 +0200, Timothy Carter wrote:
>Dear Mike and Tim,
>
>I know that you are not now involved in the TGCIA, but there is still some
>old baggage from the days of Mike's tenure that you may have some interest
>to comment on concerning regional pattern-scaling work.
>
>I attach a paper that we have prepared and distributed at the latest TGCIA
>meeting for comment (last week). If you have any comments, I would be very
>appreciative. I need comments if possible by the end of this week.
>
>The 96 pages of scatter plots are currently enormous files, and I can't
>possibly attach these for you to see. I am working on a way to get these
>substantially reduced in size. I have attached one example so you can see
>what to expect.
>
>Any feedback would be much appreciated. We intend to post this document,
>or something like it, on the DDC.
>
>Tim - have you published any of your Ph.D. results yet?
>
>Best regards and Happy New Year,
>
>Tim
>
>
>
>***********************************************************************
>Timothy Carter
>Research Professor
>Research Programme for Global Change
>Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
>Box 140, Mechelininkatu 13a, FIN-00251 Helsinki, FINLAND
>Tel: +358-9-40300-315; GSM +358-40-740-5403; Fax: +358-9-40300-390
>Email: tim.carter@ymparisto.fi
>Web:
>***********************************************************************


Dear Ulrich,
That's fine--you can go ahead and use it. But I have to issue a number of caveats first.
This is a version we gave Tim Osborne when he was visiting here, and since Tim hasn't used
it, and we haven't compared results from that code w/ our published results, I can't vouch
for it--it may or may not be the exact same version we ultimately used, and it may or may
not run properly on platforms other than the one I was using (Sun running ultrix). Scott
Rutherford (whom I've cc'd on this email) has worked with the code more frequently.
The code is not very user friendly unfortunately. For example, the determination of the
optimal subset of PCs to retain is based on application of the criterion described in our
paper, which involves running the code many times w/ different choices. So the "iterative"
process has to be performed by brute force.
The method, as outlined, is quite straightforward and others have implemented it
themselves.  SO you might prefer to code it yourself. That would be my suggestion. But you
are, of course, free to use our code.
That having been said, we have essentially abandoned that method now in favor of a
somewhat  more sophisticated version of the approach, which makes use of the RegEM method
for imputing missing values of a field described by Schneider (J. Climate, 2000).
Some initial results are described here:
Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Climate Reconstruction Using 'Pseudoproxies', Geophysical
Research Letters, 29 (10), 1501, doi: 10.1029/2001GL014554
[1]ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.[2]pdf
and in a paper in press in Journal of Climate.
Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Delworth, T.L., Stouffer, R., The Performance of
Covariance-Based Methods of Climate Field Reconstruction Under Stationary and Nonstationary
Forcing, J. Climate, in press, 2003.
(I don't have the preprint--Scott Rutherford can provide you with one however).
In our view, this is a preferable approach on a number of levels, though the results
obtained are generally quite similar.
I will be in Nice, and looking forward to seeing you there,
Mike
At 04:59 PM 1/28/03 +0100, Ulrich Cubasch wrote:
Dear Michael,
as you might know we (Briffa, Wanner, v. Storch, Tett ...) have an
European project called SOAP,
which aims at combining multy proxi and model data.
more under [3]
In the workpackage I am coordinating we would like to use your
multi-proxy program for some
temperature reconstructions. The collegues in Norwich have got your
program already, but I would like
to implement it here in Berlin. I therefore would like to ask you if you
can grant me the  permission to use it.
I will  probably copy it then from Keith and Tim directly.
I will keep you informed about the results we obtain with it.
regards
Ulrich Cubasch
P. S.
Are you coming to Nice?
_______________________________________________________________________
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]
References
1. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.pdf
2. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.pdf
3.
4.
5.


Dear Irina,
The code we used in Mann/Bradley/Hughes 1998 was not changed or "improved", but there may
be different versions of the code floating around, and in a previous email to Uli Cubasch,
I indicated that I was not sure the version you have (from Tim Osborn), is identifical to
the version we used in our original paper (it would require some work on my part to insure
it gives precisely the same results, and I don't have the time to do that). I suspect,
however, that the code is the same as the one we used in our paper and any differences, if
they exist, should be minor (as long as the code compiles and runs correctly on the
platform you have--the possible platform-dependence of fortran is a potential cause for
concern here).
Numerous people have coded up our method independently, including Ed Zorita, w/ whom I
believe your group has a close collaboration, and my graduate student Zhang has
successfully coded this up independently in Matlab (its a short script, which didn't take
Zhang long to write anyway). I'm copying this message to Zhang, so that he can provide you
with his matlab version of the code if you are interested. Because Zhang's version is in
Matlab, it should run correctly, independently of the particular platform (an advantage
over the fortran code) [As an aside, on a pedagogical note, I would still encourage you to
code this up yourself].
As I indicated in a previous email to Uli, the selection of the optimal subset of EOFS to
retain is not automated in the code, and you need to do that yourself...The methodology we
used is described in detail in our publications.
We have tested this method against the approach our group now uses for  climate field
reconstruction (Schneider RegEM approach), and find that the results are similar, but the
cross-validation statistics improve slightly w/ the RegEM approach, which we now favor and
use in place of the old, Mann et al approach.
Details of this latter approach are described in these two manuscripts (as well as the
original paper by Schneider referenced within):
Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Climate Reconstruction Using 'Pseudoproxies', Geophysical
Research Letters, 29 (10), 1501, doi: 10.1029/2001GL014554, 2002.
available at:
[1]ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.[2]pdf
Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Delworth, T.L., Stouffer, R., Climate Field Reconstruction
Under Stationary and Nonstationary Forcing, Journal of Climate, 16, 462-479, 2003.
available at:
[3]ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Rutherfordetal-Jclim03.pdf
The RegEM code is available over the web, and Scott Rutherford can provide you with the ftp
side if you are interested. It, too, is available only in matlab.
I hope you find this information of help.
Best of luck w/ your research,
mike mann
At 06:10 PM 2/5/03 +0100, Irina Fast wrote:
Dear Michael,
I believe that you have not heard about me as yet. My name is Irina Fast.
Since the January 2003 I am a PhD student at the Free University in Berlin in
the framework of the EU-Project SOAP. My supervisor is Ulrich Cubasch.
At the SOAP's start-up meeting it was proposed to use your multiproxy
calibration method (published in 1998) for the joint analysis of model
simulations and proxydata.
Because your method was essential improved since 1998 I would like to know if
you kann provide us with your program code.
We could try to code your approach ourselves, but we do not know if this kind
of analysis will success in our case. In the case of failure we will have to
search  for other analyses methodes. And  the timespan for the data
processing is rather short. Naturally you will not miss our gratitude and
acknowledgement.
I apologise for my mistakes in this letter.
Best regards
Irina Fast
--
*************************************
Irina Fast
Freie Universität Berlin
Institut für Meteorologie
Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10
D-12165 Berlin
Germany
e-mail:  f14@zedat.fu-berlin.de
phone:  +49 (0)30 838 711 22
fax:      +49 (0)30 838 711 60
*************************************
_______________________________________________________________________
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]
References
1. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.pdf
2. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Pseudoproxy02.pdf
3. ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/Rutherfordetal-Jclim03.pdf
4.
5.


Pavel
I will certainly make sure a letter reaches you for Friday.  And Good Luck!
Mike
At 14:07 12/02/03 +0100, Kabat, dr. P. wrote:
Dear Mike, John, Alex:
referring to out tel. conversation yesterday with Alex, hereby our request
for  a letter of support/recommendation on behalf of Tyndall for our
national Global Change Initiative programme proposal called
"Climate changes the spatial planning", ("Climate for Spatial Planning
Spatial Planning for Climate); unofficially known  to you I guess as as
"Netherlands Tyndall-like  initiative...)
After we have successfully passed  the first round of the selection last
year with the Dutch Government, we are know in final stages of submitting
the final proposal/business plan (deadline 17/2/03 - next Monday).
The proposed programme has a total budget of 100 million Euro, of which 49
million is requested from the Government, rest contribution of public and
private institutions. As a part of this programme we are aiming to set up
Netherlands Centre of Excellence (partly virtual) institute, modelled after
Tyndall. Leading parties in this effort are all well known to you:
Wageningen (kabat)
VU Amsterdam (vellinga)
RIVM (metz)
KNMI (Komen)
ICIS (Rotmans)
ECN (Bruggink)
plus another almost 50 parties.
Could you pls send us a short letter of support, in which you indicate the
importance of this initiative for advancing this type global change science,
European dimension, UK - NL collaboration, etc, etc?
We need to receive this by Friday, so send also by fax pls (apologies for
the rush). Letter is to be addressed as follows:
Prof. Dr Pavel Kabat
Science Director
Netherlands National Research Initiative "Climate changes the spatial
planning", (ICES KIS 3)
Postal address: PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen
Visiting address: Lawickse Allee 11, IAC building, room 156
Voice +31 317 474314/74713 (office), +31 653489378 (mobile), +31 264463567
(home);
Fax: +31 317495590
I attach 3 documents as background of our proposal
Many thanks for your kind help!
Pavel, Pier en colleagues
>
>
>


Dear Colleagues,
In the email from Armin Haas (signed by Carlo and Klaus) on 5th March, we were informed
that a strategy committee and a research committee had been formed; with the latter being
primarily responsible for the preparation of the proposal.
WE NOW HAVE ONLY 20 WORKING DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE PROPOSAL HAS TO BE SUBMITTED!!!
And while I am aware and involved in a number of parallel activities addressing the writing
of text for specific work domains and work packages, I have not received any formal
communication about what role is expected of me as a member of the research committee (that
has primary responsibility for the preparation of the proposal).
Needless to say I find this extremely worrying, and suggest that we URGENTLY need
clarification about 1) exactly what the research committee should do; 2) how it should do
it; 3) what responsibility for making decisions this committee will have/how it should
liaise with the strategy committee.
It seems clear that in order to finalize an overall project structure we will need to meet
face-to-face for at least 36 hours, and that this needs to happen with the utmost urgency.
I have made a provisional booking of a facility very near Stanstead airport in the UK for
next Monday and Tuesday (17th and 18th March), and offer this as a possible time and place
to meet; but am of course open to other suggestions. I would imagine that in addition to
the research committee assigned so far, we would need to co-opt the writers of several of
the work packages and the work domains leaders for the purpose of this meeting.
With warm regards and the utmost sense of urgency,
Alex Haxeltine
Dr Alexander Haxeltine
International Science Co-ordinator
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
Tel: +44 1603 593902
Fax: +44 1603 593901
Website: [1]
References
1.


Thanks Phil,
(Tom: Congrats again!)
The Soon & Baliunas paper couldn't have cleared a 'legitimate' peer review process
anywhere. That leaves only one possibility--that the peer-review process at Climate
Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board. And it isn't just De
Frietas, unfortunately I think this group also includes a member of my own department...
The skeptics appear to have staged a 'coup' at "Climate Research" (it was a mediocre
journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite 'purpose').
Folks might want to check out the editors and review editors:
[1]
In fact, Mike McCracken first pointed out this article to me, and he and I have discussed
this a bit. I've cc'd Mike in on this as well, and I've included Peck too. I told Mike that
I believed our only choice was to ignore this paper. They've already achieved what they
wanted--the claim of a peer-reviewed paper. There is nothing we can do about that now, but
the last thing we want to do is bring attention to this paper, which will be ignored by the
community on the whole...
It is pretty clear that thee skeptics here have staged a bit of a coup, even in the
presence of a number of reasonable folks on the editorial board (Whetton, Goodess, ...). My
guess is that Von Storch is actually with them (frankly, he's an odd individual, and I'm
not sure he isn't himself somewhat of a skeptic himself), and without Von Storch on their
side, they would have a very forceful personality promoting their new vision.
There have been several papers by Pat Michaels, as well as the Soon & Baliunas paper, that
couldn't get published in a reputable journal.
This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the
"peer-reviewed literature". Obviously, they found a solution to that--take over a journal!
So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a
legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.  We would also
need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently
sit on the editorial board...
What do others think?
mike
At 08:49 AM 3/11/2003 +0000, Phil Jones wrote:
Dear All,
Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of emails this morning
in
response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting) and picked up Tom's
old
address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling - worst word I can
think of today
without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to read more at the
weekend
as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston. Added Ed, Peck and
Keith A.
onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the bait, but I have so
much else on at
the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we should consider what
to do there.
The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper determine the answer they
get. They
have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I could argue 1998 wasn't
the
warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere. With their LIA being
1300-
1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first reading) no discussion of
synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental record, the early and
late
20th century warming periods are only significant locally at between 10-20% of grid
boxes.
Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do something - even if this is
just
to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think the skeptics will
use
this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number of years if it goes
unchallenged.
I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it
until they
rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the editorial board, but
papers
get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
Cheers
Phil
Dear all,
Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore probably, so don't let it
spoil your
day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal having a number of
editors. The
responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has let a few papers
through by
Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got
nowhere.
Another thing to discuss in Nice !
Cheers
Phil
X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
To: p.jones@uea
From: Tim Osborn
Subject: Soon & Baliunas
Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site:
University of East Anglia __________|   [2]~timo/
Norwich  NR4 7TJ         | sunclock:
UK                       |   [3]~timo/sunclock.htm
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
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]
References
1.
2. ~timo/
3. ~timo/sunclock.htm
4.


Dear All,
Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of emails
this morning in
response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting) and
picked up Tom's old
address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling - worst
word I can think of today
without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to read
more at the weekend
as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston. Added Ed,
Peck and Keith A.
onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the bait,
but I have so much else on at
the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we should
consider what
to do there.
The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper determine the
answer they get. They
have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I could
argue 1998 wasn't the
warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere. With
their LIA being 1300-
1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first reading) no
discussion of
synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental record,
the early and late
20th century warming periods are only significant locally at between
10-20% of grid boxes.
Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do something -
even if this is just
to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think the
skeptics will use
this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number of years
if it goes
unchallenged.
I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more
to do with it until they
rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the
editorial board, but papers
get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
Cheers
Phil
Dear all,
Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore probably, so
don't let it spoil your
day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal having a
number of editors. The
responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has let a few
papers through by
Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von Storch about
this, but got nowhere.
Another thing to discuss in Nice !
Cheers
Phil
>X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
>To: p.jones@uea
>From: Tim Osborn
>Subject: Soon & Baliunas
>
>
>
>
>Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
>Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
>Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
>School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site:
>University of East Anglia __________|   ~timo/
>Norwich  NR4 7TJ         | sunclock:
>UK                       |   ~timo/sunclock.htm
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\Soon & Baliunas 20031.pdf"


Dear All,
I like Phil's suggestion. I think such a piece would do a lot of good for the field. When
something as full of half-truths/mis-truths as  the S&B piece is put forth, it would be
very useful to have a peer-reviewed review like this, which we all have endorsed through
co-authorship,  to point to in response. This way, when we get the inevitable "so what do
you have to say about this" from our colleagues, we already have a self-contained, thorough
rejoinder to point to. I'm sure we won't all agree on every detail, but there is enough
commonality in our views on the big issues to make this worthwhile.
Perhaps Phil can go ahead and contact the editorial board at "Reviews of Geophysics" and
see if they're interested. If so, Phil and I (and anyone else interested) could take the
lead with this, and then we can entrain everyone else in as we proceed with a draft, etc.
mike
p.s. Keith: I hope you're feeling well, and that your recovery proceeds quickly!
At 10:02 AM 3/12/2003 +0000, Phil Jones wrote:
Dear All,
I agree with all the points being made and the multi-authored article would be a
good idea,
but how do we go about not letting it get buried somewhere. Can we not address the
misconceptions by finally coming up with definitive dates for the LIA and MWP and
redefining what we think the terms really mean? With all of us and more on the paper,
it should
carry a lot of weight. In a way we will be setting the agenda for what should be being
done
over the next few years.
We do want a reputable journal but is The Holocene the right vehicle. It is
probably the
best of its class of journals out there.  Mike and I were asked to write an article for
the EGS
journal of Surveys of Geophysics. You've not heard of this - few have, so we declined.
However,
it got me thinking that we could try for Reviews of Geophysics. Need to contact the
editorial
board to see if this might be possible. Just a thought, but it certainly has a high
profile.
What we want to write is NOT the scholarly review a la Jean Grove (bless her soul)
that
just reviews but doesn't come to anything firm. We want a critical review that enables
agendas to be set. Ray's recent multi-authored piece goes a lot of the way so we need
to build on this.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:55 11/03/03 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
HI Malcolm,
Thanks for the feedback--I largely concur. I do, though, think there is a particular
problem with "Climate Research".  This is where my colleague Pat Michaels now publishes
exclusively, and his two closest colleagues are on the editorial board and review editor
board. So I promise you, we'll see more of this there, and I personally think there *is*
a bigger problem with the "messenger" in this case...
But the Soon and Baliunas paper is its own, separate issue too. I too like Tom's latter
idea, of a  more hefty multi-authored piece in an appropriate journal (Paleoceanography?
Holocene?) that seeks to correct a number of misconceptions out there, perhaps using
Baliunas and Soon as a case study ('poster child'?), but taking on a slightly greater
territory too.
Question is, who would take the lead role. I *know* we're all very busy,
mike
At 10:28 AM 3/11/03 -0700, Malcolm Hughes wrote:
I'm with Tom on this. In a way it comes back to a rant of mine
to which some of you have already been victim. The general
point is that there are two arms of climatology:
neoclimatology - what you do based on instrumental records
and direct, systematic observations in networks - all set in a
very Late Holocene/Anthropocene time with hourly to decadal
interests.
paleoclimatology - stuff from rocks, etc., where major changes
in the Earth system, including its climate, associated with
major changes in boundary conditions, may be detected by
examination of one or a handful of paleo records.
Between these two is what we do - "mesoclimatology" -
dealing with many of the same phenomena as neoclimatology,
using documentary and natural archives to look at phenomena
on interannual to millennial time scales. Given relatively small
changes in boundary conditions (until the last couple of
centuries), mesoclimatology has to work in a way that is very
similar to neoclimatology. Most notably, it depends on heavily
replicated networks of precisely dated records capable of
being either calibrated, or whose relationship to climate may
be modeled accuarately and precisely.
Because this distinction is not recognized by many (e.g.
Sonnechkin, Broecker, Karlen) we see an accumulation of
misguided attempts at describing the climate of recent
millennia. It would be better to head this off in general, rather
than draw attention to a bad paper. After all, as Tom rightly
says, we could all nominate really bad papers that have been
published in journals of outstanding reputation (although there
could well be differences between our lists).
End of rant, Cheers, Malcolm
> Hi guys,
>
> junk gets published in lots of places.  I think that what could be
> done is a short reply to the authors in Climate Research OR a SLIGHTLY
> longer note in a reputable journal entitled something like "Continuing
> Misconceptions About interpretation of past climate change."  I kind
> of like the more pointed character of the latter and submitting it as
> a short note with a group authorship carries a heft that a reply to a
> paper, in no matter what journal, does not.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> >  Dear All,
> >        Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of
> >emails this morning in
> >  response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting)
> >and picked up Tom's old
> >  address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
> >      I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling -
> >worst word I can think of today
> >  without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to
> >read more at the weekend
> >  as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston.
> >Added Ed, Peck and Keith A.
> >  onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the
> >bait, but I have so much else on at
> >  the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we
> >should consider what
> >  to do there.
> >      The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper
> >determine the answer they get. They
> >  have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I
> >could argue 1998 wasn't the
> >  warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere.
> >With their LIA being 1300-
> >1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first
> >reading) no discussion of
> >  synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental
> >record, the early and late
> >  20th century warming periods are only significant locally at
> >between 10-20% of grid boxes.
> >       Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do
> >something - even if this is just
> >  to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think
> >the skeptics will use
> >  this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number of
> >
> >years if it goes
> >  unchallenged.
> >
> >        I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having
> >nothing more to do with it until they
> >  rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the
> >editorial board, but papers
> >  get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >  Dear all,
> >       Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore
> >probably, so don't let it spoil your
> >  day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal
> >having a number of editors. The
> >  responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has let
> >
> >a few papers through by
> >  Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von Storch
> >
> >about this, but got nowhere.
> >      Another thing to discuss in Nice !
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >>X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
> >>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
> >>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
> >>To: p.jones@uea
> >>From: Tim Osborn
> >>Subject: Soon & Baliunas
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
> >>Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
> >>Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
> >>School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site: University of East
> >>Anglia __________|   [1]~timo/ Norwich  NR4
> >>7TJ         | sunclock: UK                       |
> >>[2]~timo/sunclock.htm
> >
> >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
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >-------
> >
> >
> >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:Soon & Baliunas 2003.pdf (PDF
> >/CARO) (00016021)
>
>
> --
> Thomas J. Crowley
> Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
> Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
> Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
> Box 90227
> 103  Old Chem Building Duke University
> Durham, NC  27708
>
> tcrowley@duke.edu
> 919-681-8228
> 919-684-5833  fax
Malcolm Hughes
Professor of Dendrochronology
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-621-6470
fax 520-621-8229
_______________________________________________________________________
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
[3]
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________
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]
References
1. ~timo/
2. ~timo/sunclock.htm
3.
4.


Phil et al,
I suggest either BAMS or Eos - the latter would probably be better because it is shorter,
quicker, has a wide distribution, and all the points that need to be made have been made
before.
rather than dwelling on Soon and Baliunas I think the message should be pointedly made
against all of the standard claptrap being dredged up.
I suggest two figures- one on time series and another showing the spatial array of
temperatures at one point in the Middle Ages.  I produced a few of those for the Ambio
paper but already have one ready for the Greenland settlement period 965-995 showing the
regional nature of the warmth in that figure.  we could add a few new sites to it, but if
people think otherwise we could of course go in some other direction.
rather than getting into the delicate question of which paleo reconstruction to use I
suggest that we show a time series that is an eof of the different reconstructions - one
that emphasizes the commonality of the message.
Tom
Dear All,
I agree with all the points being made and the multi-authored article would be a
good idea,
but how do we go about not letting it get buried somewhere. Can we not address the
misconceptions by finally coming up with definitive dates for the LIA and MWP and
redefining what we think the terms really mean? With all of us and more on the paper,
it should
carry a lot of weight. In a way we will be setting the agenda for what should be being
done
over the next few years.
We do want a reputable journal but is The Holocene the right vehicle. It is
probably the
best of its class of journals out there.  Mike and I were asked to write an article for
the EGS
journal of Surveys of Geophysics. You've not heard of this - few have, so we declined.
However,
it got me thinking that we could try for Reviews of Geophysics. Need to contact the
editorial
board to see if this might be possible. Just a thought, but it certainly has a high
profile.
What we want to write is NOT the scholarly review a la Jean Grove (bless her soul)
that
just reviews but doesn't come to anything firm. We want a critical review that enables
agendas to be set. Ray's recent multi-authored piece goes a lot of the way so we need
to build on this.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:55 11/03/03 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
HI Malcolm,
Thanks for the feedback--I largely concur. I do, though, think there is a particular
problem with "Climate Research".  This is where my colleague Pat Michaels now publishes
exclusively, and his two closest colleagues are on the editorial board and review editor
board. So I promise you, we'll see more of this there, and I personally think there *is*
a bigger problem with the "messenger" in this case...
But the Soon and Baliunas paper is its own, separate issue too. I too like Tom's latter
idea, of a  more hefty multi-authored piece in an appropriate journal (Paleoceanography?
Holocene?) that seeks to correct a number of misconceptions out there, perhaps using
Baliunas and Soon as a case study ('poster child'?), but taking on a slightly greater
territory too.
Question is, who would take the lead role. I *know* we're all very busy,
mike
At 10:28 AM 3/11/03 -0700, Malcolm Hughes wrote:
I'm with Tom on this. In a way it comes back to a rant of mine
to which some of you have already been victim. The general
point is that there are two arms of climatology:
neoclimatology - what you do based on instrumental records
and direct, systematic observations in networks - all set in a
very Late Holocene/Anthropocene time with hourly to decadal
interests.
paleoclimatology - stuff from rocks, etc., where major changes
in the Earth system, including its climate, associated with
major changes in boundary conditions, may be detected by
examination of one or a handful of paleo records.
Between these two is what we do - "mesoclimatology" -
dealing with many of the same phenomena as neoclimatology,
using documentary and natural archives to look at phenomena
on interannual to millennial time scales. Given relatively small
changes in boundary conditions (until the last couple of
centuries), mesoclimatology has to work in a way that is very
similar to neoclimatology. Most notably, it depends on heavily
replicated networks of precisely dated records capable of
being either calibrated, or whose relationship to climate may
be modeled accuarately and precisely.
Because this distinction is not recognized by many (e.g.
Sonnechkin, Broecker, Karlen) we see an accumulation of
misguided attempts at describing the climate of recent
millennia. It would be better to head this off in general, rather
than draw attention to a bad paper. After all, as Tom rightly
says, we could all nominate really bad papers that have been
published in journals of outstanding reputation (although there
could well be differences between our lists).
End of rant, Cheers, Malcolm
> Hi guys,
>
> junk gets published in lots of places.  I think that what could be
> done is a short reply to the authors in Climate Research OR a SLIGHTLY
> longer note in a reputable journal entitled something like "Continuing
> Misconceptions About interpretation of past climate change."  I kind
> of like the more pointed character of the latter and submitting it as
> a short note with a group authorship carries a heft that a reply to a
> paper, in no matter what journal, does not.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> >  Dear All,
> >        Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of
> >emails this morning in
> >  response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting)
> >and picked up Tom's old
> >  address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
> >      I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling -
> >worst word I can think of today
> >  without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to
> >read more at the weekend
> >  as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston.
> >Added Ed, Peck and Keith A.
> >  onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the
> >bait, but I have so much else on at
> >  the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we
> >should consider what
> >  to do there.
> >      The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper
> >determine the answer they get. They
> >  have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I
> >could argue 1998 wasn't the
> >  warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere.
> >With their LIA being 1300-
> >1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first
> >reading) no discussion of
> >  synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental
> >record, the early and late
> >  20th century warming periods are only significant locally at
> >between 10-20% of grid boxes.
> >       Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do
> >something - even if this is just
> >  to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think
> >the skeptics will use
> >  this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number of
> >
> >years if it goes
> >  unchallenged.
> >
> >        I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having
> >nothing more to do with it until they
> >  rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the
> >editorial board, but papers
> >  get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >  Dear all,
> >       Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore
> >probably, so don't let it spoil your
> >  day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal
> >having a number of editors. The
> >  responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has let
> >
> >a few papers through by
> >  Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von Storch
> >
> >about this, but got nowhere.
> >      Another thing to discuss in Nice !
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >>X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
> >>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
> >>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
> >>To: p.jones@uea
> >>From: Tim Osborn
> >>Subject: Soon & Baliunas
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
> >>Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
> >>Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
> >>School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site: University of East
> >>Anglia __________|   ~timo/ Norwich  NR4
> >>7TJ         | sunclock: UK                       |
> >>~timo/sunclock.htm
> >
> >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
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >-------
> >
> >
> >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:Soon & Baliunas 2003.pdf (PDF
> >/CARO) (00016021)
>
>
> --
> Thomas J. Crowley
> Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
> Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
> Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
> Box 90227
> 103  Old Chem Building Duke University
> Durham, NC  27708
>
> tcrowley@duke.edu
> 919-681-8228
> 919-684-5833  fax
Malcolm Hughes
Professor of Dendrochronology
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-621-6470
fax 520-621-8229
_______________________________________________________________________
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

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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Thomas J. Crowley
Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Box 90227
103  Old Chem Building Duke University
Durham, NC  27708
tcrowley@duke.edu
919-681-8228
919-684-5833  fax


Dear All,
First, I'd be willing to handle the data and the plotting/mapping.
Second, regarding Mike's suggestions, if we use different reference
periods for the reconstructions and the models we need to be extremely
careful about the differences. Not having seen what this will look
like, I suggest that we start with the same instrumental reference
period for both (1856-1960). If you are willing to send me your series
please send the raw (i.e. unfiltered) series. That way I can treat
them all the same. We can then decide how we want to display the
results.
Finally, Tom's suggestion of Eos struck me as a great way to get a
short, pointed story out to the most people (though I have no feel for
the international distribution).  My sense (being relatively new to
this field compared to everyone else) is that within the neo- and
mesoclimate research community there is a (relatively small?) group of
people who don't or won't "get it" and there is nothing we can do
about them aside from continuing to publish quality work in quality
journals (or calling in a Mafia hit).  Those (e.g. us) who are
engrossed in the issues and are aware of all the literature should be
able to distinguish between well done and poor work.  Should then the
intent of this proposed contribution be to education those who are not
directly involved in MWP/LIA issues including those both on the
perifery of the issue as well as those outside? If so, then the issue
that Phil raised about not letting it get buried is significant and I
think Eos is a great way to get people to see it.
Cheers,
Scott
On Wednesday, March 12, 2003, at 10:32 AM, Michael E. Mann wrote:
p.s. The idea of both a representative time-slice spatial
plot emphasizing the spatial variability of e.g. the MWP or LIA, and
an EOF analysis of all the records is a great idea. I'd like to
suggest a small modification of the latter:
I would suggest we show 2 curves, representing the 1st PC of two
different groups, one of empirical reconstructions, the other of model
simulations, rather than just one in the time plot.
Group #1 could include:
1) Crowley & Lowery
2) Mann et al 1999
3) Bradley and Jones 1995
4) Jones et al, 1998
5) Briffa et al 200X? [Keith/Tim to provide their preferred MXD
reconstruction]
6) Esper et al [yes, no?--one series that differs from the others
won't make much of a difference]
I would suggest we scale the resulting PC to the CRU 1856-1960 annual
Northern Hemisphere mean instrumental record, which should overlap w/
all of the series, and which pre-dates the MXD decline issue...
Group #2 would include various model simulations using different
forcings, and with slightly different sensitivities. This could
include 6 or so simulation results:
1) 3 series from Crowley (2000) [based on different solar/volcanic
reconstructions],
2) 2 series from Gerber et al (Bern modeling group result) [based on
different assumed sensitivities]
1) Bauer et al series (Claussen group EMIC result) [includes 19th/20th
century land use changes as a forcing].
I would suggest that the model's 20th century mean is aligned with the
20th century instrumental N.Hem mean for comparison (since this is
when we know the forcings best).
I'd like to nominate Scott R. as the collector of the time series and
the performer of the EOF analyses, scaling, and plotting, since Scott
already has many of the series and many of the appropriate analysis
and plotting tools set up to do this.
We could each send our preferred versions of our respective time
series to Scott as an ascii attachment, etc.
thoughts, comments?
thanks,
mike
At 10:08 AM 3/12/2003 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
Thanks Tom,
Either would be good, but Eos is an especially good idea. Both Ellen
M-T and Keith Alverson are on the editorial board there, so I think
there would be some receptiveness to such a submission.t
I see this as complementary to other pieces that we have written or
are currently writing (e.g. a review that Ray, Malcolm, and Henry Diaz
are doing for Science on the MWP) and this should proceed entirely
independently of that.
If there is group interest  in taking this tack, I'd be happy to
contact Ellen/Keith about the potential interest in Eos, or I'd be
happy to let Tom or Phil to take the lead too...
Comments?
mike
At 09:15 AM 3/12/2003 -0500, Tom Crowley wrote:
Phil et al,
I suggest either BAMS or Eos - the latter would probably be
better because it is shorter, quicker, has a wide distribution, and
all the points that need to be made have been made before.
rather than dwelling on Soon and Baliunas I think the message
should be pointedly made against all of the standard claptrap being
dredged up.
I suggest two figures- one on time series and another showing
the spatial array of temperatures at one point in the Middle Ages.  I
produced a few of those for the Ambio paper but already have one ready
for the Greenland settlement period 965-995 showing the regional
nature of the warmth in that figure.  we could add a few new sites to
it, but if people think otherwise we could of course go in some other
direction.
rather than getting into the delicate question of which paleo
reconstruction to use I suggest that we show a time series that is an
eof of the different reconstructions - one that emphasizes the
commonality of the message.
Tom
Dear All,
I agree with all the points being made and the multi-authored
article would be a good idea,
but how do we go about not letting it get buried somewhere. Can we
not address the
misconceptions by finally coming up with definitive dates for the LIA
and MWP and
redefining what we think the terms really mean? With all of us and
more on the paper, it should
carry a lot of weight. In a way we will be setting the agenda for
what should be being done
over the next few years.
We do want a reputable journal but is The Holocene the right
vehicle. It is probably the
best of its class of journals out there.  Mike and I were asked to
write an article for the EGS
journal of Surveys of Geophysics. You've not heard of this - few
have, so we declined. However,
it got me thinking that we could try for Reviews of Geophysics. Need
to contact the editorial
board to see if this might be possible. Just a thought, but it
certainly has a high profile.
What we want to write is NOT the scholarly review a la Jean Grove
(bless her soul) that
just reviews but doesn't come to anything firm. We want a critical
review that enables
agendas to be set. Ray's recent multi-authored piece goes a lot of
the way so we need
to build on this.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:55 11/03/03 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote:
HI Malcolm,
Thanks for the feedback--I largely concur. I do, though, think there
is a particular problem with "Climate Research".  This is where my
colleague Pat Michaels now publishes exclusively, and his two closest
colleagues are on the editorial board and review editor board. So I
promise you, we'll see more of this there, and I personally think
there *is* a bigger problem with the "messenger" in this case...
But the Soon and Baliunas paper is its own, separate issue too. I too
like Tom's latter idea, of a  more hefty multi-authored piece in an
appropriate journal (Paleoceanography? Holocene?) that seeks to
correct a number of misconceptions out there, perhaps using Baliunas
and Soon as a case study ('poster child'?), but taking on a slightly
greater territory too.
Question is, who would take the lead role. I *know* we're all very
busy,
mike
At 10:28 AM 3/11/03 -0700, Malcolm Hughes wrote:
I'm with Tom on this. In a way it comes back to a rant of mine
to which some of you have already been victim. The general
point is that there are two arms of climatology:
neoclimatology - what you do based on instrumental records
and direct, systematic observations in networks - all set in a
very Late Holocene/Anthropocene time with hourly to decadal
interests.
paleoclimatology - stuff from rocks, etc., where major changes
in the Earth system, including its climate, associated with
major changes in boundary conditions, may be detected by
examination of one or a handful of paleo records.
Between these two is what we do - "mesoclimatology" -
dealing with many of the same phenomena as neoclimatology,
using documentary and natural archives to look at phenomena
on interannual to millennial time scales. Given relatively small
changes in boundary conditions (until the last couple of
centuries), mesoclimatology has to work in a way that is very
similar to neoclimatology. Most notably, it depends on heavily
replicated networks of precisely dated records capable of
being either calibrated, or whose relationship to climate may
be modeled accuarately and precisely.
Because this distinction is not recognized by many (e.g.
Sonnechkin, Broecker, Karlen) we see an accumulation of
misguided attempts at describing the climate of recent
millennia. It would be better to head this off in general, rather
than draw attention to a bad paper. After all, as Tom rightly
says, we could all nominate really bad papers that have been
published in journals of outstanding reputation (although there
could well be differences between our lists).
End of rant, Cheers, Malcolm
> Hi guys,
>
> junk gets published in lots of places.  I think that what could be
> done is a short reply to the authors in Climate Research OR a
SLIGHTLY
> longer note in a reputable journal entitled something like
"Continuing
> Misconceptions About interpretation of past climate change."  I kind
> of like the more pointed character of the latter and submitting it as
> a short note with a group authorship carries a heft that a reply to a
> paper, in no matter what journal, does not.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> >  Dear All,
> >        Apologies for sending this again. I was expecting a stack of
> >emails this morning in
> >  response, but I inadvertently left Mike off (mistake in pasting)
> >and picked up Tom's old
> >  address. Tom is busy though with another offspring !
> >      I looked briefly at the paper last night and it is appalling -
> >worst word I can think of today
> >  without the mood pepper appearing on the email ! I'll have time to
> >read more at the weekend
> >  as I'm coming to the US for the DoE CCPP meeting at Charleston.
> >Added Ed, Peck and Keith A.
> >  onto this list as well.   I would like to have time to rise to the
> >bait, but I have so much else on at
> >  the moment. As a few of us will be at the EGS/AGU meet in Nice, we
> >should consider what
> >  to do there.
> >      The phrasing of the questions at the start of the paper
> >determine the answer they get. They
> >  have no idea what multiproxy averaging does. By their logic, I
> >could argue 1998 wasn't the
> >  warmest year globally, because it wasn't the warmest everywhere.
> >With their LIA being 1300-
> >1900 and their MWP 800-1300, there appears (at my quick first
> >reading) no discussion of
> >  synchroneity of the cool/warm periods. Even with the instrumental
> >record, the early and late
> >  20th century warming periods are only significant locally at
> >between 10-20% of grid boxes.
> >       Writing this I am becoming more convinced we should do
> >something - even if this is just
> >  to state once and for all what we mean by the LIA and MWP. I think
> >the skeptics will use
> >  this paper to their own ends and it will set paleo back a number
of
> >
> >years if it goes
> >  unchallenged.
> >
> >        I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having
> >nothing more to do with it until they
> >  rid themselves of this troublesome editor.  A CRU person is on the
> >editorial board, but papers
> >  get dealt with by the editor assigned by Hans von Storch.
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >  Dear all,
> >       Tim Osborn has just come across this.  Best to ignore
> >probably, so don't let it spoil your
> >  day. I've not looked at it yet.  It results from this journal
> >having a number of editors. The
> >  responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ.  He has
let
> >
> >a few papers through by
> >  Michaels and Gray in the past.  I've had words with Hans von
Storch
> >
> >about this, but got nowhere.
> >      Another thing to discuss in Nice !
> >
> >  Cheers
> >  Phil
> >
> >>X-Sender: f055@pop.uea.ac.uk
> >>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1
> >>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:32:14 +0000
> >>To: p.jones@uea
> >>From: Tim Osborn
> >>Subject: Soon & Baliunas
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Dr Timothy J Osborn                 | phone:    +44 1603 592089
> >>Senior Research Associate           | fax:      +44 1603 507784
> >>Climatic Research Unit              | e-mail:   t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
> >>School of Environmental Sciences    | web-site: University of East
> >>Anglia __________|
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~timo/
Norwich  NR4
> >>7TJ         | sunclock: UK                       |
>
>>
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> >
> >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
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >-------
> >
> >
> >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:Soon & Baliunas 2003.pdf (PDF
> >/CARO) (00016021)
>
>
> --
> Thomas J. Crowley
> Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
> Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
> Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
> Box 90227
> 103  Old Chem Building Duke University
> Durham, NC  27708
>
> tcrowley@duke.edu
> 919-681-8228
> 919-684-5833  fax
Malcolm Hughes
Professor of Dendrochronology
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-621-6470
fax 520-621-8229
_______________________________________________________________________
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
1999,1999,FFFF

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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Thomas J. Crowley
Nicholas Professor of Earth Systems Science
Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Box 90227
103  Old Chem Building Duke University
Durham, NC  27708
tcrowley@duke.edu
919-681-8228
919-684-5833  fax
Courier New
______________________________________________________________
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
1999,1999,FFFF

Courier New
______________________________________________________________
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
1999,1999,FFFF

______________________________________________
Scott Rutherford
University of Virginia		University of Rhode Island
Environmental Sciences		Graduate School of Oceanography
Clark Hall					South Ferry Road
Charlottesville, VA 22903 	Narragansett, RI 02882
srutherford@virginia.edu		srutherford@gso.uri.edu
phone: (434) 924-4669		(401) 874-6599
fax: (434) 982-2137			(401) 874-6811