date: Thu, 21 May 2009 14:19:44 UT from: grlonline@agu.org subject: Review Received by Geophysical Research Letters to: p.jones@uea.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_----------=_12429155842290144" MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 3.01 (F2.74; B3.07; Q3.07) Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 14:19:44 UT Message-Id: <1912429155841@gems> Dear Dr. Jones: Thank you for your review of "How Will Earth's Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?" by Judith Lean and David Rind [Paper #2009GL038932], which we have safely received. A copy of this review is attached below for your reference. Thank you for your time and effort! Sincerely, Anne Mueller Editor Geophysical Research Letters ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Science Category: Science Category 2 Presentation Category: Presentation Category B Annotated Manuscript: No Anonymous: Yes Referrals: No Confidential Referrals: Highlight: No Highlight: Formal Review: Second Review of Lean/Rind Most of my comments have been dealt with adequately. I've spotted only a few minor things this time. 1. At the top of p2 (line 1) it would be good to refer to Easterling and Wehner (2009) after the word decade. This paper has only recently come out, but it is very relevant to the point here. It is also relevant to the discussion in the Results section on p3, lines 21-26. Easterling and Wehner also show that in future GCM simulations there are periods of a decade in the future where little warming occurs. 2. On p3 (line 21) the format has gone awry, perhaps in the making of the pdf. What you are doing here is using the global average and the gridded data from HadCRUT3. You just need to say HadCRUT3v - exactly in this way. You seem also to have got the global average, but this would seem to be superfluous information. The dataset name is what is important. 3. p4, line 12, I think 1978-79 should be 1997-98, unless you've discovered a hitherto unknown ENSO event! 4. This same paragraph would be clearer if some of the text was moved around. The model fitting period of 1970-99 seems key information that should be earlier. You then plot everything from 1980-2008. Is there a reason why you look how well the model works for 2001-2005 and not for 2001-2008? Is one of the factors not yet available? 5. Glad to see that you've dropped reference to European winter warming from volcanic events. What matters here is what the real world says. Do look at the long European winter series some time! 6. Finally, maybe you need to supply the origins of the phrase 'past is prologue'. It is an interesting source. I can see Chinese scientists perplexed when they find out what prologue means! References Easterling, D.R. and Wehner, M., 2009: Is the climate warming or cooling? Geophys. Res. Letts. 36, L08706, doi:10.1029/2009GL037810.