cc: Eystein Jansen , Fortunat Joos , Jonathan Overpeck , David Rind , rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de, Bette Otto-Bleisner , cddhr@giss.nasa.gov, Ricardo Villalba , Jean Jouzel , Valerie Masson-Delmotte , Dominique Raynaud , Keith Briffa , jean-claude.duplessy@lsce.cnrs-gif.fr, john.f.mitchell@metoffice.gov.uk, dolago@uonbi.ac.ke, peltier@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca, rramesh@prl.res.in, olgasolomina@yandex.ru, derzhang@msn.com, Thomas Stocker date: Fri May 9 17:01:29 2008 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: request for all correspondence related to IPCC to: Susan Solomon , Eystein Jansen , Tim Osborn Susan et al, Thanks for this. Responses so far have been unanimous. Keith/Tim will pass these onto the FOI person at UEA. It might surprise you all to know that we have a full time person here at UEA for this! The FOI was designed to make government more accountable, but it affects many more institutions and organizations than intended. Although we have nothing to hide, responding in the way suggested will allow these people to continue their campaign against IPCC, attempting to persuade people that we have something to hide. There isn't another way - I can see that. Perhaps - whoever is involved in AR5 - should consider modifying the working procedures, in the light of these requests, as I think they will increase in number at a quicker rate than the global T will. Maybe if the arctic sea ice disappears completely in a summer soon these people will finally stop disputing the evidence. By then though it will be too late to do much about it. Have a good weekend! Phil At 15:44 09/05/2008, Susan Solomon wrote: Dear Colleagues, I am attaching below the message I sent to John Mitchell and the other REs, with regard to a query seeking information on data as well as discussions about comments, in case it is helpful to those of you who may not have yet seen it. The same considerations apply to the chapters as to the comment files. The final chapters and comment files have all been made publicly available, and the web pages are the appropriate place for those seeking to understand what was done and the reasons why. Distribution of interim materials, or other forms of elaboration are not appropriate. best regards, Susan -------------------- John I feel that the most appropriate response will be from you, since you have been queried. I will offer the following points that may be useful to you or others in replying to the queries that you or other REs may have received but of course it is up to you how you wish to respond. The IPCC process assesses the published scientific and technical literature or, in some cases 'gray literature', based on the judgment of the authors. In general gray literature is used very seldom in WG1 although such material as industry technical reports are used more frequently in WG3. Unpublished draft papers or technical reports referenced in the chapters are made available to reviewers for the purposes of the review, not the underlying datasets used. IPCC does not have the mandate nor resources to operate as a clearing house for the massive amounts of data used in the underlying papers referenced. The governance of conduct of research, and the governance and requirements of the scientific literature are not IPCC's role. The review editors do not determine the content of the chapters. The authors are responsible for the content of their chapters and responding to comments, not REs. Further explanations, elaboration, or re-interpretations of the comments or the author responses, would not be appropriate. All of the comments, and all of the authors' responses, have been made available. These are the proper source for anyone seeking to understand what comments were made and how the authors dealt with them, and it would be inappropriate to provide more information beyond the reference to the web pages where this can be found. best regards, Susan 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------