date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 08:06:54 -0500 from: "Michael E. Mann" subject: Re: Fwd: Re: clarification re Mann / McKitrick andMcIntyre to: Tim Osborn , Michael Oppenheimer , Tim Osborn , Phil Jones , Keith Briffa , , , Tom Wigley , tom crowley , Gabi Hegerl , Jonathan Overpeck , mann@virginia.edu Dear All, We have an official response to be submitted shortly for peer-review. We will send the response to all of you for your comments, whether or not you get it for review. We hope to have it finalized within a week or so, depending on Ray's ability to read and comment while travelling. This will provide more of the details behind our "initial" response... It is best to let things play out this way. These folks appear to have some very large industry groups behind them running the show, setting up forums for them on capitol hill (the latest sponsored by the infamous "Marshall Institute") and its best for scientists not to exchange any emails with them--they will only quote you out of context and misrepresent your comments. Please feel free to contact me to discuss further. So I strongly advise against any scientists communicating with these people. Understand that anything you send to them, you are giving to a highly organized industry PR firm that is behind this effort. An investigative reporter in the media may be revealing the dubious details behind this in an article in the near future. Please feel free to contact me to discuss further, mike At 12:53 PM 11/12/2003 +0000, Tim Osborn wrote: Dear all, I'm forwarding this because I'm not sure which of you received it. I'm also not sure which of you would want to have received it - apologies if you've had enough of this sort of thing, you can probably predict most of the contents and it is rather long! One thing I will add which may be of more interest... McIntyre has emailed me asking whether (under certain terms and conditions!) we (Keith, Phil and I) would "examine" (review?) part of their response to the Mann et al. preliminary response. I haven't yet discussed this with Keith and Phil, who are away, but there a some clear reasons to decline their request, so I think it unlikely that we will say yes. Regards Tim From: "Sonja.B-C" Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:18:11 +0000 To: gavin_Watson@hotmail.com, Aynsley Kellow Subject: Fwd: Re: clarification re Mann / McKitrick andMcIntyre Cc: gsmith@socsci.soton.ac.uk, climatesceptics@yahoogroups.com, Tim Osborn , Bob Ferguson Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Execmail for Win32 5.1.1 Build (10) Dear All, The letter below makes good reading and its author (Aynsley) is thanked! It is a welcome 'defence' of E&E in the current furore over another paper (by McIntyre and McKitrick 'Corrections to Mann et al..' about to appear in print but already on the multi-science web page) the IPCC community does not like because it comes from outsiders and challenges the consensus of the 'climate science community'. (Also see 'The Economist' this week, which takes up the Castles and Henderson paper from earlier this year [14 2/3] and suggests that Treasuries may at least be taking an interests in the IPCC ). I am sending this beyond the original people involved because Prof. Mann has allowed much of this particular 'hocky stick' debate to appear on a web site run by a journalist - see below - and also because my UK colleagues in political science and International Relations have, as far as I know, completely ignored the book by Aynsley and me. One UK political scientist a few years and who should have known better because he had studied the attempts of the coal industry to discredit the IPCC (this failed), dismissed my work as conspiracy theory. One Australian/ WMO meteorologist did the same more recently when reviewing the book by Aynsley and me (International Environmental Policy: Interests and the Failure of the Kyoto Process, Edward Elgar Publishing, November 2002). He may be forgiven for he had an interest to defend. We do not put forward conspiracy theories, but talk about a flexible coalition of advocacy based on interests, ideology and some science still plagued by much uncertainty; lots of baptists are forming 'partnerships' with boot-leggers, the research enterprise being just one of (often reluctant) many partners in the 'decarbonisation' by subsidisation (and vice versa) game. Sonja --- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 16:15:57 +1100 From: Aynsley Kellow Subject: Fwd: Re: clarification Sender: Aynsley Kellow To: rbradley@geo.umass.edu Cc: Sonja.B-C@hull.ac.uk, "Michael E. Mann" , , "David R. Legates" , Eigil Friis-Christensen , rmckitri@uoguelph.ca Reply-To: Aynsley Kellow Message-ID: Dear Professor Bradley, I have been meaning to respond to your message to Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, but many other duties have conspired to deny me the time to do so. I think it is important that I do so, particularly because of the nature of the extraordinary attack on her for daring to publish the M&M paper in E&E. I should declare that I recently co-authored a book with Sonja, and recently accepted an invitation to join the Editorial Board of E&E, having previously published two papers with it. I speak, therefore, with some exerience of both Sonja and the journal. The journal can stand by its own reputation - by the quality of its multidisciplinary content (which is always likely to provoke occasional controversy), but I am disturbed by the attacks on Sonja, which have been personal and included derogatory comments. Sonja has an excellent track record of publication in science politics and policy, including both research monographs and articles in leading journals, including Nature, Energy Policy, Environmental Politics, and Global Environmental Change. She is perhaps unequalled in her understanding of the issues involved and is widely cited by those on all sides of the climate change issue. The attack on her character is regrettable, all the more so because it has been conducted under protection of anonymity, thanks largely to the manner in which Dr Mann first engaged the M&M paper. For reasons best known to him, Dr Mann responded to this paper first on David Appell's blog 'Quark Soup' - an unfortunate choice, I must say. (Dr Appell reported Dr Mann's initial response at 8.02 am on 29 October - two days before the first draft of your collective initial response was posted on the East Anglia site). I was not previously familiar with this blog - there is an awful lot of junk in cyberspace and it is hard to track it all. Dr Appell professes to be a journalist, but his blog lies squarely in the realm of commentary, and provides a forum for anonymous gratuitous comment of the kind that no quality newspaper allows. It is a practice permitted by the tabloid press, perhaps fittingly, because that is the quality of journal which might reprint Sonja's e-mail to Dr Mann - deliberately circulated widely - and trumpet that it had obtained a copy of a 'leaked e-mail'. To further illustrate my point about quality, Dr Appell also slurs Theodor Landscheidt under the heading 'E&E publishes an astrologer!', when Landscheidt's book is quite cleary an evidenced-based critique of atsrology. He also describes the critique of SRES published by Ian Castles and David Henderson as 'a third specious paper published recently by Energy and Environment'. For the record, Castles is a former Government Statistician and Head of the Finance Department in the Australian Government, and (until recently) was Vice-President of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. David Henderson was formerly Head of the Economics Department at the OECD. Prior to drawing attention to problems with SRES, Castles did much the same with the misuse of statistics in the UNDP World Development Report, a matter which was referred to the UN Statistical Commission, which upheld his critique. Dr Appell seems to have his loyal retinue of readers, though I see that few other than a couple of characters called 'Uncle E' and 'Dano' bother to contribute their anonymous patter. All the more surprising, then, that Dr Mann would select a medium such as this as his outlet. (Indeed, he gave his permission for e-mails between himslef and M&M to be posted). Ironically, Dr Appell's website incorporates a quotation by Heinrich Heine about book-burning. The irony lies in the calls by Dr Appell and his acolytes for the non-publication of M&M and other pieces which do not accord with his position on the issue, and the celebration of the resignation of members of editorial boards from journals for publishing (or, most recently, intending to publish) work they disagreed with (or, most recently, by people they disagree with, since there is no suggestion that Professor Hulme has even seen the piece over which he is resigning). I suppose if we can suppress publication of books (and articles) we can save ourselves the trouble of burning them! It is entirely appropriate that Sonja should invite Mann et al to respond to the M&M paper, but I think you are wrong in expecting that you should have been given access to the paper before any decision was made to publish. Had the M&M paper simply been a comment on Mann et al, then it probably should have been written as a letter to Nature, and referred to Mann, yourself and Hughes for a rejoinder. But it was much more than that, and they have stated quite explicitly why they wished a longer piece to be considered for publication. As a paper in it's own right, the authors had every reason to have it subjected to review as a paper in any journal they chose. As such, it would have been wholly inappropriate for it to be sent to any of the Mann et al authors for review, as to do so would have placed you in a conflict of interest: reviewing a paper which reflected critically on your work. Moreover, Dr Mann (as I understand it) quite explicitly cut off communication with M&M before the paper was completed and submitted. M&M cannot then be held responsible for your lack of involvement in the final version. As you rightly note, in peer review there should be an independence between the authors and the reviewers. This cuts both ways: there should be no positive or negative relationship between them. But peer review is not the only determinant of science, important as it is. The US Supreme Court (in Daubert v Merril Dow) has provided a good statement of what constitutes scientific evidence. Publication after anonymous peer review is an important part of that, but so too is the requirement that it should have withstood several attempts at verification or falsification. I guess many of us have had concerns over the treatment of Mann et al in IPCC TAR on these very grounds: Mann being a lead author, TAR being drafted before exactly the the kind of paper M&M have written could have appeared, the political use of the implications of the paper (especially given the combination of proxy and instrumental data, when science without political purpose would have been satisfied with merely the proxy reconstruction). The production of a consensus (especially by an Intergovernmental Panel) is an inherently political process, and that is where Sonja and I have our interest and expertise. But we both know that science is controversial, and attempts to create and enforce consensus are not typical of the usual way in which science is progressed. For the record, while we think TAR erred in allowing new storylines rather than new science (as Tom Wigley has pointed out) to drive a new upper limit to the temperature range which is improbable in the extreme, Sonja and I are on the record as stating we consider we are probably in for 1-3 deg C of warming and that something less than this is probably anthropogenic. We see much unresolved uncertainty in the science. We are critical of the Kyoto Protocol as a policy instrument and of the Kyoto process as a means of developng policy instruments - but that is our expertise. Regardless of the outcome of Mann et al vs M&M, it is quite clear that science will have been advanced as a result of the attempt of both teams to further our understanding of complex and important issues. I would suggest, however, that science is best advanced by conducting the terms of the debate on civil terms, and in media where participants are prepared to stand by their views and opinions. I get very worried when I see ad hominem attacks, along with commission of the genetic fallacy, use of argumentum ad populum., etc. My first reaction is to think that those using them do so in desperation in the absence of an argument. So please let's conduct the debate according to accepted rules, and submit your reponse to E&E. If it holds water, it stands the test of time - that's the deal with science. If M&M are wrong, show how and why. Incidentally, I agree with Sonja on your depiction of the politics of science. You would fail introductory political science with such a caricatured account of the manner in which politics might influence science. There are staw men everywhere! If you want a better appreciation removed from the cut and thrust of climate science, try Robert Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton UP). Study question: why was German science and policy on tobacco at least 20 years ahead of Sir Richard Doll in the UK and the US Surgeon-General? Best, Aynsley Kellow >From: "Sonja.B-C" >Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:43:32 +0000 >To: "Raymond S. Bradley" >Subject: Re: clarification >Cc: "Michael E. Mann" , L.A.Love@hull.ac.uk, > "David R. Legates" , Aynsley Kellow >, > Eigil Friis-Christensen >Priority: NORMAL >Status: RO > >Dear Raymond, or should I say Dear Distinguished Professor Bradley? > >You clearly are not a political scientist, not that this matters, but >ignorance tends to lead to simplification by all of us, and I do >include myself as far as your work is concerned. Where I disagree with >you is summarised below. I hope you forgive the wider participating >audience, for you are making a few points about peer review and >publication issues were a wider debate is essential for me and my >position as editor. > > >From my perspective your argument about US policy is wrong: there is no >such thing as 'a ' government and the politics I talk about is rarely >confined to political parties, except for very few decisions. Ratifying >a treaty is one of them. >I know enough about the USA to be sure that many of its parts (DOE, EA, >sections of the State Department and by now all departments with >significant research budgets) are in favour of Kyoto..and hence see >global warming as a serious threat, a threat that 'enables' them >without asking for much now. Bureaucracies like such issues. Met one of >your chaps only yesterday, at Chatham House, Royal Institute for >International Affairs, a Richard Bradley for US DOE International >Affairs who poked a lot of fun at Bush and friends...and made it quite >clear where he stood, and that was with Kyoto. The resistance in US >(and Australia and Russia) does not come primarily from the middle and >lower sections of the administrative machinery, but from top >politicians and the Senate, that is from people accountable to >electors. Support for Kyoto does come from the ENRONs and all those >who want subsidies in one form of another, less from those that have to >raise the money for decarbonisation and emission buying. >(I am in favour of subsidies and hence taxes if they solve real >problems, but not when they go to fund visions and model predictions.) > I know quite a lot about how governments work; one friend negotiated >UNFCC for one country I am familiar with. In another country I know >well, I know top scientists who will say one thing in public and >another in private....but gots loads of money to study carbon, and >doing useful science. Even the geologists are now persuaded that >carbon is a threat, look at the sequestration issue in geological >formations...and why not...until international mandatory law tries to >impose rules and regulations on others that are likely to be harmed by >them. >Could write much more, but perhaps you have time to read a bit about >global warming policy and politics.(Attached..) By the way, I amnot >that distinguished, but would be pleased if a sciecne journal did look >at my work. Onthe other hand, teh link is the other way round; in this >case the policy relevance of science is meat for me. On the other >hand, it woudl do science defined as research no harm to worry a bit >more about who funds them and why, and above all who simplifies their >findings for what purpose. > >By the way, no need to lecture me on peer review, have been in this game >long enough too, on both sides. There is a growing trend for peers to >belong to a mutual support group, and the reasons for that is the >emphasis now put, by funders, on peer review, as if this were the best >way to assess 'quality'..this again serves bureaucracies rather than >science, and works sometimes, but not always. >I do stand corrected however on your point about returning peer >reviewed papers to the author of a paper that has been criticised. I >have never come across this in the social sciences, I did not learn itg >from my shusbanmd who was a space physicist, and I myslef have never >had this experience. I (and A Kellow) have been accused by >non-political scientists of conspiracy theory..a top WMO person did >this last, and apologised in private...People who have had different >experiences of the peer review process might like to contact you >directly. >Best wishes >Sonja > On Thu, 06 Nov >2003 12:38:57 -0500 "Raymond S. Bradley" wrote: > > > In a recent email to Mike Mann you ask: > > "journals like mine are surely permitted to ask and who is funding the > > 'global warming' modelling community ". > > It is public knowledge that almost all of the modeling research in the US > > is funded by a government firmly committed to NOT adopting the Kyoto > > protocols. If your argument is that we are all somehow brainlessly > > following the dictates of our funding, would it not follow that we would > > all be publishing results that support this government > > position? Apparently we are not. Could it be that the entire research > > community is perversely seeking to have their funding terminated, or > > perhaps that 100% of the community are Democrats? This seems inherently > > unlikely..... > > Scientists seek to publish what they discover, wherever the chips may fall, > > and other scientists (NOT selected by the authors) review their procedures > > and data, then recommend whether the research should see the light of > > day. This is known as peer review. If other scientists then find fault > > with the published research, they are free to write a critique which is > > always --ALWAYS-- sent to the original authors to assess and respond to > > BEFORE it is published. You apparently do not follow such procedures, > > which clearly demonstrates that you are not interested in an open dialogue, > > but only concerned with pushing your own political agenda--the very > > criticism that you seem to level at climate scientists who worked on the > > IPCC research assessment. > > As for the McIntyre and McKintrick paper that you published as a > > "correction" to our work, following an "audit" of our data and procedures, > > you have done the research community a great disservice by giving voice to > > a flawed and erroneous study which neither correctly "audited" our work, > > nor "corrected" it. Furthermore, you did not give us the common courtesy of > > seeing the paper before it was rushed into print. Had you done so, we > > would have pointed out the errors and misunderstandings that pervade their > > study. Let me emphasise that I believe anybody has the right to carry out > > a climate reconstruction and submit their results for publication, but > > nobody has the right to claim they have undertaken an audit when they have > > manifestly not done so. I'd have thought that a company CEO like McIntyre > > would understand what the word audit meant even if you do not. > > Since you clearly "do not claim that I or my reviewers can arbitrate on the > > 'scientific' truth of publications that the IPCC selects" I really think it > > would be best if you don't stray into that arena and stick to what you feel > > you can best evaluate. I suspect you would not appreciate an evaluation of > > your work published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. > > Sincerely > > > > Raymond S. Bradley > > University Distinguished Professor > > Director, Climate System Research Center* > > Department of Geosciences > > Morrill Science Center > > 611 North Pleasant Street > > AMHERST, MA 01003-9297 > > > > Tel: 413-545-2120 > > Fax: 413-545-1200 > > *Climate System Research Center: 413-545-0659 > > <[1]http://www.paleoclimate.org> > > Paleoclimatology Book Web Site: [2]http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/paleo/html > > > > > > > >---------------------- >Dr.Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen >Reader,Department of Geography, >Editor, Energy & Environment >(Multi-science,www.multi-science.co.uk) >Faculty of Science >University of Hull >Hull HU6 7RX, UK >Tel: (0)1482 465349/6341/5385 >Fax: (0)1482 466340 >Sonja.B-C@hull.ac.uk > > > > --- End Forwarded Message --- ---------------------- Dr.Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Reader,Department of Geography, Editor, Energy & Environment (Multi-science,www.multi-science.co.uk) Faculty of Science University of Hull Hull HU6 7RX, UK Tel: (0)1482 465349/6341/5385 Fax: (0)1482 466340 Sonja.B-C@hull.ac.uk Dear Professor Bradley, I have been meaning to respond to your message to Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, but many other duties have conspired to deny me the time to do so. I think it is important that I do so, particularly because of the nature of the extraordinary attack on her for daring to publish the M&M paper in E&E. I should declare that I recently co-authored a book with Sonja, and recently accepted an invitation to join the Editorial Board of E&E, having previously published two papers with it. I speak, therefore, with some exerience of both Sonja and the journal. The journal can stand by its own reputation - by the quality of its multidisciplinary content (which is always likely to provoke occasional controversy), but I am disturbed by the attacks on Sonja, which have been personal and included derogatory comments. Sonja has an excellent track record of publication in science politics and policy, including both research monographs and articles in leading journals, including Nature, Energy Policy, Environmental Politics, and Global Environmental Change. She is perhaps unequalled in her understanding of the issues involved and is widely cited by those on all sides of the climate change issue. The attack on her character is regrettable, all the more so because it has been conducted under protection of anonymity, thanks largely to the manner in which Dr Mann first engaged the M&M paper. For reasons best known to him, Dr Mann responded to this paper first on David Appell's blog 'Quark Soup' - an unfortunate choice, I must say. (Dr Appell reported Dr Mann's initial response at 8.02 am on 29 October - two days before the first draft of your collective initial response was posted on the East Anglia site). I was not previously familiar with this blog - there is an awful lot of junk in cyberspace and it is hard to track it all. Dr Appell professes to be a journalist, but his blog lies squarely in the realm of commentary, and provides a forum for anonymous gratuitous comment of the kind that no quality newspaper allows. It is a practice permitted by the tabloid press, perhaps fittingly, because that is the quality of journal which might reprint Sonja's e-mail to Dr Mann - deliberately circulated widely - and trumpet that it had obtained a copy of a 'leaked e-mail'. To further illustrate my point about quality, Dr Appell also slurs Theodor Landscheidt under the heading 'E&E publishes an astrologer!', when Landscheidt's book is quite cleary an evidenced-based critique of atsrology. He also describes the critique of SRES published by Ian Castles and David Henderson as 'a third specious paper published recently by Energy and Environment'. For the record, Castles is a former Government Statistician and Head of the Finance Department in the Australian Government, and (until recently) was Vice-President of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. David Henderson was formerly Head of the Economics Department at the OECD. Prior to drawing attention to problems with SRES, Castles did much the same with the misuse of statistics in the UNDP World Development Report, a matter which was referred to the UN Statistical Commission, which upheld his critique. Dr Appell seems to have his loyal retinue of readers, though I see that few other than a couple of characters called 'Uncle E' and 'Dano' bother to contribute their anonymous patter. All the more surprising, then, that Dr Mann would select a medium such as this as his outlet. (Indeed, he gave his permission for e-mails between himslef and M&M to be posted). Ironically, Dr Appell's website incorporates a quotation by Heinrich Heine about book-burning. The irony lies in the calls by Dr Appell and his acolytes for the non-publication of M&M and other pieces which do not accord with his position on the issue, and the celebration of the resignation of members of editorial boards from journals for publishing (or, most recently, intending to publish) work they disagreed with (or, most recently, by people they disagree with, since there is no suggestion that Professor Hulme has even seen the piece over which he is resigning). I suppose if we can suppress publication of books (and articles) we can save ourselves the trouble of burning them! It is entirely appropriate that Sonja should invite Mann et al to respond to the M&M paper, but I think you are wrong in expecting that you should have been given access to the paper before any decision was made to publish. Had the M&M paper simply been a comment on Mann et al, then it probably should have been written as a letter to Nature, and referred to Mann, yourself and Hughes for a rejoinder. But it was much more than that, and they have stated quite explicitly why they wished a longer piece to be considered for publication. As a paper in it's own right, the authors had every reason to have it subjected to review as a paper in any journal they chose. As such, it would have been wholly inappropriate for it to be sent to any of the Mann et al authors for review, as to do so would have placed you in a conflict of interest: reviewing a paper which reflected critically on your work. Moreover, Dr Mann (as I understand it) quite explicitly cut off communication with M&M before the paper was completed and submitted. M&M cannot then be held responsible for your lack of involvement in the final version. As you rightly note, in peer review there should be an independence between the authors and the reviewers. This cuts both ways: there should be no positive or negative relationship between them. But peer review is not the only determinant of science, important as it is. The US Supreme Court (in Daubert v Merril Dow) has provided a good statement of what constitutes scientific evidence. Publication after anonymous peer review is an important part of that, but so too is the requirement that it should have withstood several attempts at verification or falsification. I guess many of us have had concerns over the treatment of Mann et al in IPCC TAR on these very grounds: Mann being a lead author, TAR being drafted before exactly the the kind of paper M&M have written could have appeared, the political use of the implications of the paper (especially given the combination of proxy and instrumental data, when science without political purpose would have been satisfied with merely the proxy reconstruction). The production of a consensus (especially by an Intergovernmental Panel) is an inherently political process, and that is where Sonja and I have our interest and expertise. But we both know that science is controversial, and attempts to create and enforce consensus are not typical of the usual way in which science is progressed. For the record, while we think TAR erred in allowing new storylines rather than new science (as Tom Wigley has pointed out) to drive a new upper limit to the temperature range which is improbable in the extreme, Sonja and I are on the record as stating we consider we are probably in for 1-3 deg C of warming and that something less than this is probably anthropogenic. We see much unresolved uncertainty in the science. We are critical of the Kyoto Protocol as a policy instrument and of the Kyoto process as a means of developng policy instruments - but that is our expertise. Regardless of the outcome of Mann et al vs M&M, it is quite clear that science will have been advanced as a result of the attempt of both teams to further our understanding of complex and important issues. I would suggest, however, that science is best advanced by conducting the terms of the debate on civil terms, and in media where participants are prepared to stand by their views and opinions. I get very worried when I see ad hominem attacks, along with commission of the genetic fallacy, use of argumentum ad populum., etc. My first reaction is to think that those using them do so in desperation in the absence of an argument. So please let's conduct the debate according to accepted rules, and submit your reponse to E&E. If it holds water, it stands the test of time - that's the deal with science. If M&M are wrong, show how and why. Incidentally, I agree with Sonja on your depiction of the politics of science. You would fail introductory political science with such a caricatured account of the manner in which politics might influence science. There are staw men everywhere! If you want a better appreciation removed from the cut and thrust of climate science, try Robert Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton UP). Study question: why was German science and policy on tobacco at least 20 years ahead of Sir Richard Doll in the UK and the US Surgeon-General? Best, Aynsley Kellow From: "Sonja.B-C" Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:43:32 +0000 To: "Raymond S. Bradley" Subject: Re: clarification Cc: "Michael E. Mann" , L.A.Love@hull.ac.uk, "David R. Legates" , Aynsley Kellow , Eigil Friis-Christensen Priority: NORMAL Status: RO Dear Raymond, or should I say Dear Distinguished Professor Bradley? You clearly are not a political scientist, not that this matters, but ignorance tends to lead to simplification by all of us, and I do include myself as far as your work is concerned. Where I disagree with you is summarised below. I hope you forgive the wider participating audience, for you are making a few points about peer review and publication issues were a wider debate is essential for me and my position as editor. >From my perspective your argument about US policy is wrong: there is no such thing as 'a ' government and the politics I talk about is rarely confined to political parties, except for very few decisions. Ratifying a treaty is one of them. I know enough about the USA to be sure that many of its parts (DOE, EA, sections of the State Department and by now all departments with significant research budgets) are in favour of Kyoto..and hence see global warming as a serious threat, a threat that 'enables' them without asking for much now. Bureaucracies like such issues. Met one of your chaps only yesterday, at Chatham House, Royal Institute for International Affairs, a Richard Bradley for US DOE International Affairs who poked a lot of fun at Bush and friends...and made it quite clear where he stood, and that was with Kyoto. The resistance in US (and Australia and Russia) does not come primarily from the middle and lower sections of the administrative machinery, but from top politicians and the Senate, that is from people accountable to electors. Support for Kyoto does come from the ENRONs and all those who want subsidies in one form of another, less from those that have to raise the money for decarbonisation and emission buying. (I am in favour of subsidies and hence taxes if they solve real problems, but not when they go to fund visions and model predictions.) I know quite a lot about how governments work; one friend negotiated UNFCC for one country I am familiar with. In another country I know well, I know top scientists who will say one thing in public and another in private....but gots loads of money to study carbon, and doing useful science. Even the geologists are now persuaded that carbon is a threat, look at the sequestration issue in geological formations...and why not...until international mandatory law tries to impose rules and regulations on others that are likely to be harmed by them. Could write much more, but perhaps you have time to read a bit about global warming policy and politics.(Attached..) By the way, I amnot that distinguished, but would be pleased if a sciecne journal did look at my work. Onthe other hand, teh link is the other way round; in this case the policy relevance of science is meat for me. On the other hand, it woudl do science defined as research no harm to worry a bit more about who funds them and why, and above all who simplifies their findings for what purpose. By the way, no need to lecture me on peer review, have been in this game long enough too, on both sides. There is a growing trend for peers to belong to a mutual support group, and the reasons for that is the emphasis now put, by funders, on peer review, as if this were the best way to assess 'quality'..this again serves bureaucracies rather than science, and works sometimes, but not always. I do stand corrected however on your point about returning peer reviewed papers to the author of a paper that has been criticised. I have never come across this in the social sciences, I did not learn itg from my shusbanmd who was a space physicist, and I myslef have never had this experience. I (and A Kellow) have been accused by non-political scientists of conspiracy theory..a top WMO person did this last, and apologised in private...People who have had different experiences of the peer review process might like to contact you directly. Best wishes Sonja On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 12:38:57 -0500 "Raymond S. Bradley" wrote: > In a recent email to Mike Mann you ask: > "journals like mine are surely permitted to ask and who is funding the > 'global warming' modelling community ". > It is public knowledge that almost all of the modeling research in the US > is funded by a government firmly committed to NOT adopting the Kyoto > protocols. If your argument is that we are all somehow brainlessly > following the dictates of our funding, would it not follow that we would > all be publishing results that support this government > position? Apparently we are not. Could it be that the entire research > community is perversely seeking to have their funding terminated, or > perhaps that 100% of the community are Democrats? This seems inherently > unlikely..... > Scientists seek to publish what they discover, wherever the chips may fall, > and other scientists (NOT selected by the authors) review their procedures > and data, then recommend whether the research should see the light of > day. This is known as peer review. If other scientists then find fault > with the published research, they are free to write a critique which is > always --ALWAYS-- sent to the original authors to assess and respond to > BEFORE it is published. You apparently do not follow such procedures, > which clearly demonstrates that you are not interested in an open dialogue, > but only concerned with pushing your own political agenda--the very > criticism that you seem to level at climate scientists who worked on the > IPCC research assessment. > As for the McIntyre and McKintrick paper that you published as a > "correction" to our work, following an "audit" of our data and procedures, > you have done the research community a great disservice by giving voice to > a flawed and erroneous study which neither correctly "audited" our work, > nor "corrected" it. Furthermore, you did not give us the common courtesy of > seeing the paper before it was rushed into print. Had you done so, we > would have pointed out the errors and misunderstandings that pervade their > study. Let me emphasise that I believe anybody has the right to carry out > a climate reconstruction and submit their results for publication, but > nobody has the right to claim they have undertaken an audit when they have > manifestly not done so. I'd have thought that a company CEO like McIntyre > would understand what the word audit meant even if you do not. > Since you clearly "do not claim that I or my reviewers can arbitrate on the > 'scientific' truth of publications that the IPCC selects" I really think it > would be best if you don't stray into that arena and stick to what you feel > you can best evaluate. I suspect you would not appreciate an evaluation of > your work published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. > Sincerely > > Raymond S. Bradley > University Distinguished Professor > Director, Climate System Research Center* > Department of Geosciences > Morrill Science Center > 611 North Pleasant Street > AMHERST, MA 01003-9297 > > Tel: 413-545-2120 > Fax: 413-545-1200 > *Climate System Research Center: 413-545-0659 > <<[3]http://www.paleoclimate.org>[4]http://www.paleoclimate.org> > Paleoclimatology Book Web Site: <[5]http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/paleo/html>[6]http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/pale o/html > > > ---------------------- Dr.Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Reader,Department of Geography, Editor, Energy & Environment (Multi-science,www.multi-science.co.uk) Faculty of Science University of Hull Hull HU6 7RX, UK Tel: (0)1482 465349/6341/5385 Fax: (0)1482 466340 Sonja.B-C@hull.ac.uk
Professor Aynsley Kellow
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University of Tasmania
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Fax: 61+3+ 6226 2895 Dr Timothy J Osborn Climatic Research Unit School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK e-mail: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk phone: +44 1603 592089 fax: +44 1603 507784 web: [7]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/ sunclock: [8]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.htm ______________________________________________________________ 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 [9]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml