From	Michael E. Mann	Date	Thu, 21 Mar 2002 16:39:06 -0500
To	Edward R. Cook
CC	Keith Briffa, Phil Jones, Tom Crowley, Tim Osborn, ray bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes
Subject	Esper et al paper
Dear Ed, I'm really sorry I couldn't be more supportive of the final version of the manuscript. I fully expected to be able to be more positive in my assessment. I was frankly very disappointed when I saw the final version--it is overwhelmingly different from the version you shared with us originally. Sadly, it seems to have suffered, and not benefited, from the review process--a very odd scenario. I fault the reviewers as much (in fact more) that I fault you for this. There are some really basic problems that they didn't seem to catch. I hope neither you nor your co-authors take this personally. I'm trying to be as diplomatic as I can be in my discussions w/ reporters, etc. but I really wish you hadn't sprung this on us w/ no warning of the dramatic changes that were made. I'm forced to be somewhat critical, because the flaws in some of your conclusions need to be pointed out, or they will be exploited by those w/ alterior motives. You certainly must have foreseen this, as must have the reviewers. I'm very disappointed, very disappointed indeed. I'm sharing my comments w/ Keith, Phil, Tim, Tom, Ray, and Malcolm. I am resisting the temptation to write a letter of response to Science, although my better judgement dictates that I should... Mike _______________________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [1]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.[2]shtml Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\treerings-comments.doc" References 1. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 2. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml