East Anglia Confirmed Emails from the Climate Research Unit - 1051156418.txt

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mike Hulme <m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Danny Harvey <harvey@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Robert wilby <rob.wilby@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steve Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Crowley <tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, jto <jto@u.arizona.edu>, "simon.shackley" <simon.shackley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "tim.carter" <tim.carter@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "p.martens" <p.martens@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "peter.whetton" <peter.whetton@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "c.goodess" <c.goodess@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "a.minns" <a.minns@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Wolfgang Cramer <Wolfgang.Cramer@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "j.salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "simon.torok" <simon.torok@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mark Eakin <mark.eakin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Neville Nicholls <n.nicholls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Ray Bradley <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mike MacCracken <mmaccrac@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Barrie Pittock <Barrie.Pittock@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Ellen Mosley-Thompson <thompson4@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "pachauri@xxxxxxxxx.xxx" <pachauri@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Greg.Ayers" <Greg.Ayers@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: My turn
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 23:53:38 -0600

Dear friends,

[Apologies to those I have missed who have been part of this email
exchange -- although they may be glad to have been missed]

I think Barrie Pittock has the right idea -- although there are some
unique things about this situation. Barrie says ....

(1) There are lots of bad papers out there
(2) The best response is probably to write a 'rebuttal'

to which I add ....

(3) A published rebuttal will help IPCC authors in the 4AR.

____________________

Let me give you an example. There was a paper a few years ago by Legates
and Davis in GRL (vol. 24, pp. 2319-1222, 1997) that was nothing more
than a direct
and pointed criticism of some work by Santer and me -- yet neither of us
was asked to review the paper. We complained, and GRL admitted it was
poor judgment on the part of the editor. Eventually (> 2 years later)
we wrote a response (GRL 27, 2973-2976, 2000). However, our response was
more that just a rebuttal, it was an attempt to clarify some issues on
detection. In doing things this way we tried to make it clear that the
original Legates/Davis paper was an example of bad science (more
bluntly, either sophomoric ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation).

Any rebuttal must point out very clearly the flaws in the original
paper. If some new science (or explanations) can be added -- as we did
in the above example -- then this is an advantage.

_____________________________

There is some personal judgment involved in deciding whether to rebut.
Correcting bad science is the first concern. Responding to unfair
personal criticisms is next. Third is the possible misrepresentation of
the results by persons with ideological or political agendas. On the
basis of these I think the Baliunas paper should be rebutted by persons
with appropriate expertise. Names like Mann, Crowley, Briffa, Bradley,
Jones, Hughes come to mind. Are these people willing to spend time on
this?

_______________________________

There are two other examples that I know of where I will probably be
involved in writing a response.

The first is a paper by Douglass and Clader in GRL (vol. 29, no. 16,
10.1029/2002GL015345, 2002). I refereed a virtually identical paper for
J. Climate, recommending rejection. All the other referees recommended
rejection too. The paper is truly appalling -- but somehow it must have
been poorly reviewed by GRL and slipped through the net. I have no
reason to believe that this was anything more than chance. Nevertheless,
my judgment is that the science is so bad that a response is necessary.

The second is the paper by Michaels et al. that was in Climate Research
(vol. 23, pp. 1

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