cc: trenbert@cgd.ucar.edu, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk date: Wed May 5 09:33:12 2004 from: Phil Jones subject: A truly awful paper in IJC !! to: plamb@ou.edu Dear Pete, The last issue of IJC has a paper saying that the Sahel drought was a function of changing gauge configurations !!! The authors have no idea how a regional precip average is calculated - or by inference any variable. Paper is in IJC (attached as a pdf). Kevin and I have just agreed to be the CLA's for the Atmos. Obs. chapter for 4AR in 2.5 years time. If you've got the time to write a response, then please do. If not (as likely) then can you forward to someone who might be able to - Sharon, for example? It would be good to have something to refer to in the IPCC chapter, as I'm sure the sketpics will expect to see it there. By implication, their supposed study refers to all regional precip series. I'm no longer on the editorial board and the present editor (Glenn McGregor - another Kiwi) seems impermeable to my suggestions over the last few years about standards in the journal. He dispensed with the annual reviews of the UK people on the board and is virtually uncontactable by email when reviews take a while. There is another paper in the issue which I had to hassle him about for ages as it took 9 months to review. He finally accepted that with only a partial review. This one is OK though ! The paper by Chappell and Agnew is all the more galling for Mike and me here in CRU and Tyndall at UEA for several reasons: 1. They got the data from CRU - no idea when or what they got ! 2. Clive Agnew used to be in CRU - only for a while though ! 3. Adrian Chappell is at Mike's old University and I thought he was OK ! 4. They didn't refer to Jones/Hulme in IJC (v16, 1996, 361-377) on how to calculate regional averages for temp and precip. We did this for the SAR, but no-one refers to it. 5. No reference to your work - I thought there was till I saw the initials HH ! Cheers Phil 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------