date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:41:06 -0700
from: Ben Santer <santer1@llnl.gov>
subject: David Douglass
to: "Thorne, Peter" <peter.thorne@metoffice.gov.uk>, Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@univie.ac.at>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@llnl.gov>, Tom Wigley <wigley@cgd.ucar.edu>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@noaa.gov>, ssolomon@frii.com, Melissa Free <Melissa.Free@noaa.gov>, peter gleckler <gleckler1@llnl.gov>, "'Philip D. Jones'" <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov>, Steve Klein <klein21@mail.llnl.gov>, carl mears <mears@remss.com>, Doug Nychka <nychka@ucar.edu>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov>, Steven Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@yale.edu>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@remss.com>

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Dear folks,

I just wanted to alert you to an issue that has arisen in the last few 
days. As you probably know, a paper by Robert Allen and Steve Sherwood 
was published last week in "Nature Geoscience". Peter Thorne was asked 
to asked to write a "News and Views" piece on the Allen and Sherwood 
paper. Peter's commentary on Allen and Sherwood briefly referenced our 
joint International Journal of Climatology (IJoC) paper. Peter discussed 
this with me about a month ago, and I saw no problem with including a 
reference to our IJoC paper. The reference in Peter's "News and Views" 
contribution is very general, and gives absolutely no information on the 
substance of our IJoC paper.

At the time Peter I discussed this issue, I had high hopes that our IJoC 
manuscript would now be very close to publication. I saw no reason why 
publication of Peter's "News and Views" piece should cause us any 
concern. Now, however, it is obvious that David Douglass has read the 
"News and Views" piece and wants a copy of our IJoC paper in advance of 
its publication - in fact, before a final editorial decision on the 
paper has been reached. Dr. Douglass has written to me and to Peter, 
requesting a copy of our IJoC paper. In his letter to Peter, Dr. 
Douglass has claimed that failure to provide him (Douglass) with a copy 
of our IJoC paper would contravene the ethics policies of the journal 
"Nature".

As you can see from my reply to Dr. Douglass, I feel strongly that we 
should not give him an advance copy of our paper. However, I think we 
should resubmit our revised manuscript to IJoC as soon as possible. The 
sooner we receive a final editorial decision on our paper, the less 
likely that it is that Dr. Douglass will be able to cause problems. With 
your permission, therefore, I'd like to resubmit our revised manuscript 
by no later than close of business tomorrow. I've incorporated most of 
the suggested changes I've received from you in the past few days. My 
personal feeling is that we've now reached the point of diminishing 
returns, and that's it's more important to get the manuscript 
resubmitted than to engage in further iterations about relatively minor 
details. I will circulate a final version of the revised paper and the 
response to the reviewers later this evening.

Please let me know if resubmission by C.O.B. tomorrow is not acceptable 
to you.

With best regards,

Ben
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Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.O. Box 808, Mail Stop L-103
Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
Tel:   (925) 422-2486
FAX:   (925) 422-7675
email: santer1@llnl.gov
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