date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 09:26:41 +1200 from: "Glenn McGregor" subject: RE: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript to: "Phil Jones" Dear Phil Thanks for the heads-up on UKCP09.As you suggest a good idea to request the CD etc.. I managed to get a third reviewer to look at the comments on your WG paper. Have pasted these below. I will rescind the decision of "reject" and change it to major revisions. Hope you are satisfied with this. ============= 3rd Reviewer's Comments I think both of these reviews are very reasonable and not overly harsh, especially the lengthy and measured remarks from Reviewer 2. My major criticisms have all been noted by one or both of the reviewers: 1. Previous literature on weather generators and their use in climate downscaling has not been mentioned or drawn upon. To the extent that a paper proposes a new method it is incumbent on the authors to compare results with prior art and demonstrate improvements. Obviously this has not been done. 2. Description of the method in Section 3 is extremely sketchy. MUCH more detail will be required in order for an interested reader to replicate the procedure, which I think is a reasonable standard. 3. I disagree with the premise that the method overall can be adequately evaluated without involving actual present-climate observations. One of the big problems in climate-change projection is dealing with biases in the climate models, and the assumption that these biases will not change too much in future climates. The relevant impacts depend on changes in weather sequences in the real world, not the RCM world, so a fair exposition of the method and its errors will include perturbations to WG parameters fit to observed sequences, not merely RCM weather sequences. The procedure used to test the method is thus incomplete. 4. I agree with Reviewer 2 that the sketchy proposal for spatially coherent generation seems not to make sense. There is a prior literature on spatially coherent weather generators based on the conventional Richardson WGEN structure. 5. Too many tables and figures. ========================================== ______________________________________________________________________________________ From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Tue 30/06/2009 23:44 To: Glenn McGregor Subject: RE: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript Glenn, UKCP09 was launched on June 18. [1]http://ukclimateprojections-ui.defra.gov.uk/ui/admin/login.php This is the web site. You might like to get the CD that is mentioned with the 5 reports on it. Been busy with numerous things as well as the launch, so had forgotten about the paper you'd said you'd send out for further review back in January. Is there any news on this? Major comment after launch on the whole UKCP09 package is that it hasn't been peer-reviewed. DEFRA did get it internationally reviewed (the WG by 3 people and the rest by another 8) in January. DEFRA paid for all the reviewers to come to a 2-day meeting in Reading. We had to respond to all the comments. It seemed more extensive than a normal peer-review, but some people seem to think that journal peer-review has a greater standing! Cheers Phil At 22:19 13/01/2009, Glenn McGregor wrote: >Phil > >Thanks for the useful suggestion > >Glad the UKCP09 meet went well > >Glenn > >-----Original Message----- >From: P.Jones@uea.ac.uk [[2]mailto:P.Jones@uea.ac.uk] >Sent: Wednesday, 14 January 2009 9:29 a.m. >To: Glenn McGregor >Subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript > > Glenn, > Just got back from the UKCP09 meeting in Reading. > WG reasonably well received. Really helps to have some > results. > Can I make one suggestion? Good if the reviewer were > a Brit - then they's know something about the context. > > Possibilities would be Rob Wilby and Nigel Arnell. > > Rob is now at Loughboro (has left the EA - back to academia). > > Nigel is now at Reading. > > We can easily add in a review og WGs. > > Cheers > Phil > >Phil > > > > Thanks for your response and willingness for me to get a third opinion. > > > > I will get onto this straight away as soon as I am back from walking the > > dog > > > > Best for the remaining period of work on UKCIP and your travels > > > > Glenn > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: P.Jones@uea.ac.uk > > To: Glenn McGregor > > Sent: Tue Jan 13 08:10:25 2009 > > Subject: RE: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript > > > > Glenn, > > At home now. I won't be able to do anything for a > > few weeks, as we have to get the UKCP09 stuff done > > and some travel, so it can't do any harm. So go ahead. > > > > I do realize you can't read everything. > > > > I suspect one of the reviewers may have been Semenov. > > If so he is potentially biased, as his group didn't > > win the tender for the work! > > > > I don't think either reviewer realized the context of the work - > > this may be my fault. > > > > Cheers > > Phil > > > > > >> Dear Phil > >> > >> Thanks for your response to the decision on the WG paper. > >> > >> I am willing to admit that I may have got it wrong as far as the > >> decision > >> goes but you must understand my position. As I am not able to read > >> every > >> paper in detail I have to resort to taking a decision based on the > >> reviews. In this case both were rather negative, hence my decision. > >> > >> Based on your response what I would like to do, with your permission, > >> is > >> to send the paper to a 3rd reviewer and request an opinion within 3 > >> weeks. > >> If you would not like me to pursue this option then please let me know. > >> > >> Needless to say I am very conscious of the fact that you personally > >> have > >> given wonderful service to IJoC and I would hope that this incident > >> does > >> not damage the long term relationship you have with the journal. > >> > >> Best > >> Glenn > >> > >> ________________________________ > >> > >> From: Phil Jones [[3]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] > >> Sent: Tue 13/01/2009 01:25 > >> To: Glenn McGregor > >> Cc: C G Kilsby > >> Subject: Re: JOC-08-0245 - Decision on Manuscript > >> > >> > >> > >> Glenn, > >> I'm afraid these two reviews will definitely > >> discourage me from submitting more papers > >> to IJC! The two reviewers have not realized > >> the novelty of this paper. The WG > >> is fairly new and we are certainly not > >> re-inventing the wheel! We didn't do an > >> in-depth literature review because of space. If you were still > >> in the UK, you'd see this whole UKCIP08 package (now to be called > >> UKCP09) > >> including this WG coming out in the spring time (April/May). > >> To give you one example - all the papers referred to by the > >> reviewers > >> only > >> work at sites with data. The WG in the paper works anywhere in the > >> UK. > >> We've had the WG Report which will form part of the UKCP09 package > >> formally reviewed very favourably by three experts in the field. > >> You've missed a good paper for IJC here! Your reviewers have not > >> read it > >> carefully enough - nor understood what it was about. Maybe the latter > >> is > >> my > >> fault, attempting to explain too much in a > >> single paper, but I would have hoped > >> for something more constructive. > >> > >> You can ignore this email if you want. I won't be submitting this > >> paper > >> to IJC again. > >> > >> On the other paper of mine you rejected a couple of months ago, > >> I'm > >> going to re-submit that somewhere else now. These reviews were > >> constructive, > >> especially the positive one - that you chose to > >> ignore. At least the reviewers > >> understood what the paper was about. > >> > >> Cheers > >> Phil > >> > >> > >> At 10:51 12/01/2009, you wrote: > >>>12-Jan-2009 > >>> > >>>Dear Prof. Jones > >>> > >>>Manuscript # JOC-08-0245 entitled "Perturbing a > >>>Weather Generator using factors developed from > >>>Regional Climate Model simulations" which you > >>>submitted to the International Journal of > >>>Climatology, has been reviewed. The comments of > >>>the referee(s), all of whom are leading > >>>international experts in this field, are > >>>included at the bottom of this letter. If the > >>>reviewer submitted comments as an attachment > >>>this will only be visible via your Author > >>>Centre. It will not be attached to this email. > >>>Log in to Manuscript Central, go to your Author > >>>Centre, find your manuscript in the "Manuscripts > >>>with Decisions" queue. Click on the Decision > >>>Letter link. Within the Decision letter is a > >>>further link to the reviewer attachment. > >>> > >>>In view of the comments of the referee(s) your > >>>manuscript has been denied publication in the > >>>International Journal of Climatology. > >>> > >>>Thank you for considering the International > >>>Journal of Climatology for the publication of > >>>your research. I hope the outcome of this > >>>specific submission will not discourage you from submitting future > >>> manuscripts. > >>> > >>>Sincerely, > >>> > >>>Prof. Glenn McGregor > >>>Editor, International Journal of Climatology > >>>g.mcgregor@auckland.ac.nz > >>> > >>>NOTE FROM EDITOR > >>>I have taken the above decision as there appears > >>>to be a number of problems with the paper > >>>including a deficient review of the literature, > >>>few innovative aspects and a lack of analysis > >>>rigour. Sorry I could not be more positive. > >>>=========================== > >>> > >>>Referee(s)' Comments to Author: > >>> > >>>Referee: 1 > >>>Comments to the Author > >>>The paper describes how to link a weather > >>>generator, which was developed and published by > >>>the authors, with predictions from the regional > >>>climate model to provide end-users with daily > >>>climate scenarios for impact assessments as a > >>>part of the UKCIP08 project. This manuscript has major flaws. > >>>1. The problem of linking WG with the output of > >>>global or regional climate models (GCM/RegCM) to > >>>generate daily climate scenarios required by > >>>process-based impact models is not new. Wilks > >>>(1992) described the method of linking the WGEN > >>>weather generator based on a Markov chain model > >>>for precipitation with climate predictions > >>>derived from GCM. In Barrow et al (1996), a > >>>methodology of linking the LARS-WG weather > >>>generator based on series approach with HadCM2 > >>>was described and used in the European project > >>>on the assessment of climate change on > >>>agriculture in Europe. From 2002, high > >>>resolution daily site-specific climate scenarios > >>>based on LARS-WG and HadRM3 (UKCIP02) > >>>predictions were available for the academic > >>>community to study impact of climate change in > >>>the UK (Semenov, 2007). A similar work has been > >>>done for the Met&Rol generator in Check Republic > >>>(Dubrovsky et al, 2004). None of this works has > >>>been cited, and their manuscript authors are trying to > >>> "rediscoverÂEthe > >>> wheel. > >>> > >>>2. The methodology of assessing the performance > >>>of WG is well established. Statistical tests are > >>>used to compare probability distributions of > >>>observed and simulated weather variables (e.g. > >>>the K-S test), the t-test and f-test are used to > >>>compare observed and simulated means and > >>>variances, the extreme values theory is used to > >>>assess how well WG reproduces weather extreme > >>>events (Semenov et al, 1998, Qian et al 2004, > >>>2008; Kesley et al, 2005; Semenov, 2008). In > >>>this paper, authors used a "visualÂEcomparison > >>>to compare observed and simulated means by > >>>plotting data points on a graph. This is > >>>unacceptable, because no objective conclusions > >>>can be derived from such comparison. Proper > >>>statistical tests must be used instead. > >>>I recommend to reject this manuscript, it is > >>>well below the standard acceptable in IJC or any > >>>other refereed journals. The manuscript did not > >>>contribute to the area of research, and the > >>>methodology used for comparison is "naiveÂEand > >>>unaccepted in scientific publications. > >>>============================== > >>> > >>>Referee: 2 > >>>Comments to the Author > >>>All comments to the Author are found in the attached file. > >> > >> 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 > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------