From	Edward R. Cook	Date	Fri, 22 Mar 2002 16:06:28 -0500
To	Michael E. Mann, Keith Briffa, Tim Osborn, Phil Jones, Tom Crowley, ray bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Edward R. Cook, rkerr@aaas.org, Brooks Hanson
Subject	RE: Briffa & Osborn piece
Hi Mike and others, I just read the AP release. As always, there is a bit of journalistic license that was applied to interpreting what I said. The opening statement in the release is utterly the words of the reporter. Some of the quotes are probably accurate, but of course do not include qualifiers, etc. I also talked with this journo before talking with you and would phrase things a bit more carefully now after hearing your concerns. So, I am not deceiving you in what I told you over the phone. I would not express things the same way as you in any case, because I do think that we have some legitimate differences of opinion on some issues, although I think we agree much more than we disagree. Be that as it may, talking over the phone to journalists in a rapid-fire manner is not the best way to convey ideas and information and I would have re-phrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released. This was not an option provided to me. I think that it is a bit harse to say that the paper should not have been published. While I might wish to change some wording in the paper and express things a bit differently knowing what I know now, I don't think that the paper is fatally flawed, like you do. I should also point out that I have received a number of emails from respected scientists in global change research who do not appear to share your opinion. On the other hand, I have also received a couple of emails from certified nuts, which is what you are obviously most concerned about. I am not happy with such people, but I have also been savaged by similar nuts like John Daly in the past. So, I guess I can't win. Finally, this whole global change debate totally sucks because it is so politicized. It reminds me too much of the ugly acid rain/forest decline debate that I was caught in the middle of years ago. I am quite happy to leave global change to others in the future. Ed Original Message: ----------------- From: Michael E. Mann mann@multiproxy.evsc.virginia.edu Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 12:39:38 -0500 To: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, t.osborn@uea.ac.uk, p.jones@uea.ac.uk, tcrowley@duke.edu, rbradley@geo.umass.edu, mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu, drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu, rkerr@aaas.org, bhanson@aaas.org Subject: Briffa & Osborn piece Keith and Tim, Sadly, your piece on the Esper et al paper is more flawed than even the paper itself. Ed, the AP release that appeared in the papers was even worse. Apparently you allowed yourself to be quoted saying things that are inconsistent with what you told me you had said. You three all should have known better. Keith and Tim: Arguing you can scale the relationship between full Northern Hemisphere and extratropical Northern Hemisphere is *much* more problematic than even any of the seasonal issues you discuss, and this isn't even touched on in your piece. The evidence of course continues to mount (e.g., Hendy et al, Science, a couple weeks ago) that the tropical SST in the past centuries varied far more less in past centuries. Hendy et al specifically point out that there is little evidence of an LIA in the tropics in the data. The internal inconsistency here is remarkably ironic. The tropics play a very important part in our reconstruction, with half of the surface temperature estimate coming from latitudes below 30N. You know this, and in my opinion you have knowingly misrepresented our work in your piece. This will be all be straightened out in due course. In the meantime, there is a lot of damage control that needs to be done and, in my opinion, you've done a disservice to the honest discussions we had all had in the past, because you've misrepresented the evidence. Many of us are very concerned with how Science dropped the ball as far as the review process on this paper was concerned. This never should have been published in Science, for the reason's I outlined before (and have attached for those of you who haven't seen them). I have to wonder why the functioning of the review process broke down so overtly here, 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 http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .