cc: Tim Osborn ,mann@psu.edu date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:30:14 +0100 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: attacks against Keith to: Michael Mann ,gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov Mike, Gavin, The short note may not say much. As you're aware Kaufman et al have a plot without trees - their plots shows trees, lakes and ice separately. Another issue is science by blog sites - and the then immediate response mode. Science ought to work through the peer-review system..... sure you've said all these things before. We're getting a handful of nasty emails coming and requests for comments on other blog sites. One email has gone to the University Registrar because of the language used. Keith had one that said he was responsible for millions of deaths! Even one reading far too much into his off ill message. Even though I've had loads of FOIs and nasty emails, a few in the last 2 days have been the worst yet. I'm realizing more what those working on animal experiments must have gone through. Cheers Phil At 14:56 30/09/2009, Michael Mann wrote: great--thanks Tim, sounds like we have a plan. in our post, which we'll target for tomorrow as well, we'll simply link to whatever CRU puts up and re-iterate the sentiment of the temporary short response (i.e. that there was no cherry-picking, a careful and defensible selection procedure was used) and we'll mostly focus on the broader issues, i.e. that any impact of this one series in the vast array of paleoclimate reconstructions (and the importance of the paleoclimate reconstructions themselves) has been over-stated, why these sorts of attacks are not legitimate science, etc. mike On Sep 30, 2009, at 9:51 AM, Gavin Schmidt wrote: of course. we're preparing a 'bigger picture' response and will link directly to CRU and maybe quote from it directly. ============= Gavin Schmidt NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies 2880 Broadway New York, NY 10025 Tel: (212) 678 5627 Email: gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov URL: [1]http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~gavin On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, Tim Osborn wrote: Hi Mike and Gavin, Keith's temporarily come in to get a handle on all this, but it will take time. Likely outcome is (1) brief holding note that no cherry-picking was done and demonstrating data selection is defendable by our time tomorrow; (2) longer piece with more evaluation etc. in around a week. No point is posting something that turns out to be wrong. Keith may post them on the CRU website, but presumably they could be linked to from a RealClimate page or, if Keith agrees, be reproduced on RealClimate? Cheers Tim At 14:16 30/09/2009, Michael Mann wrote: Hi Tim, Just checking if there are any further developments here, i.e. some more info from either Tom or Keith. Gavin and I feel we need to do something on RealClimate on this quickly, probably by later today. thanks in advance for any help you can offer, mike On Sep 29, 2009, at 3:46 AM, Tim Osborn wrote: Hi Mike and Gavin, thanks for your emails re McIntyre, Yamal and Keith. I'll pass on your best wishes for his recovery when I next speak to Keith. He's been off almost 4 months now and won't be back for at least another month (barring a couple of lectures that he's keen to do in October as part of a gradual return). Hopefully he'll be properly back in November. Regarding Yamal, I'm afraid I know very little about the whole thing -- other than that I am 100% confident that "The tree ring data was hand-picked to get the desired result" is complete crap. Having one's integrity questioned like this must make your blood boil (as I'm sure you know, with both of you having been the target of numerous such attacks). Though it would be nice to shield Keith from this during his recovery, I think Keith will already have heard about this because he had recently been asked to look at CA in relation to the Kaufman threads (Keith was a co-author on that and Darrell had asked Keith to help with a response to the criticisms). Apart from Keith, I think Tom Melvin here is the only person who could shed light on the McIntyre criticisms of Yamal. But he can be a rather loose cannon and shouldn't be directly contacted about this (also he wasn't involved in the Yamal chronology being discussed, though he has been involved in a regional reconstruction that we've recently been working towards that uses these -- and more -- data). Perhaps Phil and I should talk with Tom and also see if Keith is already considering a response. Off to lecture for a couple of hours now... Cheers Tim Dr Timothy J Osborn, Academic Fellow Climatic Research Unit School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK e-mail: <[2]mailto:t.osborn@uea.ac.uk >[3]t.osborn@uea.ac.uk phone: +44 1603 592089 fax: +44 1603 507784 web: <[4] http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ >[5] http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ sunclock: <[6] http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm >[7] http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm -- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: <[8]mailto:mann@psu.edu >[9]mann@psu.edu University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: <[10] http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html >[11] http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: <[12] http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html >[13] http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html Dr Timothy J Osborn, Academic Fellow Climatic Research Unit School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK e-mail: [14]t.osborn@uea.ac.uk phone: +44 1603 592089 fax: +44 1603 507784 web: [15]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ sunclock: [16]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm -- Michael E. Mann Professor Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC) Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075 503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663 The Pennsylvania State University email: [17]mann@psu.edu University Park, PA 16802-5013 website: [18]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html "Dire Predictions" book site: [19]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------