cc: Phil Jones , Ray Bradley , Malcolm Hughes , Mike MacCracken , Steve Schneider , tom crowley , Tom Wigley , Jonathan Overpeck , asocci@cox.net, Keith Briffa , Tim Osborn , Tim_Profeta@lieberman.senate.gov, Ben Santer , Gabi Hegerl , Ellen Mosley-Thompson , "Lonnie G. Thompson" , Kevin Trenberth date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 12:55:04 -0500 from: "Michael E. Mann" subject: Re: CONFIDENTIAL Fwd: to: Michael Oppenheimer Nick Katz of USA Today called me asking about the story. I game him the low down as spelled out in the "response" I drafted earlier, and encouraged him to get second opinions by other scientists in the field, naming some of you. Hope you all don't mind... mike At 09:52 AM 10/27/2003 -0500, Michael Oppenheimer wrote: Mike: From my point of view, the critical thing now is that you NOT spend too much time or psychological energy on this stuff. I know that's a tall order, but it could effectively take you away from your real business for much too long, and potentially exact an even higher price upon you. Your decision to let others do the heavy lifting to the extent that's feasible is wise. Also, at this point, it is unlikely that the vote would be affected later this week by these goings-on. All this sounds very familiar, reeking of what happened to Ben. Their real objective is to neutralize you by dragging you into time-consuming and eventually fruitless fighting, and to send a message to other scientists who might be tempted to enter the public arena. Michael "Michael E. Mann" wrote: Thanks Phil, I guess we just have to wait and see what happens w/ this, mike At 01:50 PM 10/27/2003 +0000, Phil Jones wrote: Mike, Steve McIntyre is the person who asked me for the series he couldn't get from the M+J article. Told him I couldn't send them - back in August. He's sent emails to the Finn (Timo) saying some of the series weren't available, blaming us for using data that aren't readily available. Some years ago I sent him loads of temperature stations and discussed homogeneity issues, but never heard anything else. From my recollection of the emails I suspect the article isn't likely to be up to much. Cheers Phil At 08:35 27/10/2003 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote: Thanks Phil, Got your email just as I sent off my latest. I agree fully with what you say--it is very difficult to repeat such an analysis exactly, and the real point here is, who knows what this guy (Steven McIntyre--I don't know who the supposed 2nd author is) actually did. The Mann et al '99 paper was clear that the results were sensitive to a small number of skillful predictors prior to AD 1400, and that non-climate biases had to be corrected for in some of the longer series to get a skillfully cross-validated reconstruction. Without knowing what the guy did, I'm guessing that he doesn't even demonstrate that his alternative "reconstruction" passes cross-validation. If not, its all moot... But more fundamentally, this wasn't submitted to a legitimate peer-reviewed scientific journal. Its a social science journal, and one that has shown a disdain for peer review (e.g. in publishing the Soon et al Climate Research paper essentially in its original unedited form--and see the recent documented comments of the editor). I agree this might blow over, but the folks in DC, such as McCain and Lieberman, who are fighting to represent what the legitimate scientific community has to say, need to be prepared in case the special interests try to use this. Hence, the short response I sent out. cheers, mike At 01:23 PM 10/27/2003 +0000, Phil Jones wrote: Mike, Depending exactly on what it says I suggest we should do our best to ignore it. E&E is edited ( a very loose use of the word) by Sonia Boehmer-Christiansen, who's generally involved, in some way, in all skeptic stuff here in Britain. It is rather odd that the email said the two had rerun his (Mann's) exact analysis and got quite different results. I know I couldn't do this, as when Keith, Tim and me wanted to do some comparisons with MBH98 a few years ago a few of the series could not be made available. I'm not trying to make any sort of point here, just to state that repeating an analysis with exactly the same data is normally very difficult. Missing values is an odd phrase also, as all the series used are complete from first to last year. If it isn't MBH98/99 then for M+J03 in GRL, there at least three series that are not available for use, without contacting the authors of the original papers. So let's wait to see what it says. Suggested response would seem follow response 2. Cheers Phil At 13:47 26/10/2003 -0500, Michael E. Mann wrote: Dear All, This has been passed along to me by someone whose identity will remain in confidence. Who knows what trickery has been pulled or selective use of data made. Its clear that "Energy and Environment" is being run by the baddies--only a shill for industry would have republished the original Soon and Baliunas paper as submitted to "Climate Research" without even editing it. Now apparently they're at it again... My suggested response is: 1) to dismiss this as stunt, appearing in a so-called "journal" which is already known to have defied standard practices of peer-review. It is clear, for example, that nobody we know has been asked to "review" this so-called paper 2) to point out the claim is nonsense since the same basic result has been obtained by numerous other researchers, using different data, elementary compositing techniques, etc. Who knows what sleight of hand the authors of this thing have pulled. Of course, the usual suspects are going to try to peddle this crap. The important thing is to deny that this has any intellectual credibility whatsoever and, if contacted by any media, to dismiss this for the stunt that it is.. Thanks for your help, mike two people have a forthcoming 'Energy & Environment' paper that's being unveiled tomoro (monday) that -- in the words of one Cato / Marshall/ CEI type -- "will claim that Mann arbitrarily ignored paleo data within his own record and substituted other data for missing values that dramatically affected his results. When his exact analysis is rerun with all the data and with no data substitutions, two very large warming spikes will appear that are greater than the 20th century. Personally, I'd offer that this was known by most people who understand Mann's methodology: it can be quite sensitive to the input data in the early centuries. Anyway, there's going to be a lot of noise on this one, and knowing Mann's very thin skin I am afraid he will react strongly, unless he has learned (as I hope he has) from the past...." ______________________________________________________________ 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 [1]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 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 [2]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 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 [3]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml ______________________________________________________________ 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]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml