cc: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk, k.briffa@uea.ac.uk date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 21:36:20 +0100 (BST) from: Simon Tett subject: Paleo-Paper to: matcollins@met.rdg.ac.uk Mat, The papers looks very good. Hope these comments aren't too late.... I don't think I need to see it again. Simon Response to reviewers I couldn't read your letter -- PS files as attachments seem to get munged by our firewall/email scanner so I've just looked at the paper to see if I think you've dealt with the reviewers comments. Editors comments: 3) Don't think you have dealt with the enhanced multi-decadal variability in the paper. Reviewer B. 1) Didn't see a justification for use of tree-rings and not using ice cores -- the obvious one is that ice cores are no good -- see Jones et al, 1998. 2) No justification for regional reconstructions rather than what Mann et al did (I don't think we can say we didn't do Mann et al because we think it is crap!) 3) No justification in the paper for the 9 regions. I think there is justification in the JGR Briffa paper. 4) That is a good point -- I would strongly suspect that the control has a lot less variance than the observations over the last century -- not the ALL run though! 5) No response to this in the paper. I suspect we are doing better stats than all the rest though! Specific Questions/comments 1) That is a good point: How about (though a bit germanic) "Comparison of simulated northern hemisphere variability with paleo-temperature ..." Didn't see that you had dealt with points 5 and 6. Ditto for point 11. Figures. 2-4 seem to be much as submitted! Figs 5-8 -- do you want to use colour? It would cost! Ref C. Don't seem to have dealt with point a) and it is quite an important point as well! Point b is a reasonable point which I think you go some way to dealing with. I suggest you stress on page 20 the "exploratory" nature of our analysis. I am just about to start such a run once I have sorted out the orbital forcings and how to calculate their radiative forcings. Point c -- not sure what the referee is saying here! Comments on the MS. Page 9 "pith" means Same sentence I think you need to add that they are grouped by species as well (the rest of the para implies that is what is done). Last sentence of penultimate para: stress that decadal to century scale variability is what we are interested mainly because of its importance in deciding if recent climate change is anthropogenic or natural. First full para on page 13 -- didn't really follow this para. 2nd para, line 11 consider "in comparison" -> "when compared" Page 14, first para -- consider expanding the abbreviations i.e CAS -> CAS (Central Asia). Page 20, last para. insert 'in the four simulations' after 'six "negative spikes"'. Section 10 should be Appendix A. -- Dr Simon Tett Managing Scientist, Data development and applications. Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Prediction and Research London Road Bracknell Berkshire RG12 2SY United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1344 856886 Fax: +44 (0)1344 854898 E-mail: simon.tett@metoffice.com http://www.metoffice.com