date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 14:28:08 -0400 (EDT) from: "Edward R. Cook" subject: Your paper to: Keith Briffa Hi Keith, Your paper reads very well. It has a refreshingly "chatty" style to it, unlike the more usual turgid style of scientific papers. You managed to mis-lable figures 2/3 and 4/5 on the figures relative to the text, but my years of experience enabled me to identify said problems. Hopefully, you have already taken care of that as well. There are the occasional typos, but I wouldn't dream of telling you where they are. After all, I have to leave some proof reading burdens to you! One question I have is why you chose EOF4 for your mapping exercise. It is very convincing, but still represents only 6% of the total variance and is ONLY the 4th most important mode. Were the other EOF1-3 map patterns with climate that much poorer? A reviewer of my Climate Dynamics paper remarked that I must "be honest", so I pass on that same comment to you. (It sounded remarkably CRUian, along with other generally quite fair comments and criticisms.) Anyway, this is all I have to say now. I will look it over again for anything else. Below are the more complete and updated references that you need. Good job! Cheers, Ed Cook E.R., Buckley, B.M. and D'Arrigo, R.D. 1999. Warm-Season Temperatures since 1600 B.C. Reconstructed from Tasmanian Tree Rings and Their Relationship to Large-Scale Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies. Climate Dynamics (in press). Cook, E.R., Meko, D.M., Stahle, D.W. and Cleaveland, M.K. 1999. Drought reconstructions for the continental United States. Journal of Climate 12:1145-1162. Cole, J.E. and Cook, E.R. 1998. The changing relationship between ENSO variability and moisture balance in the continental United States. Geophysical Research Letters 25(24):4529-4531.