From	Rashit Hantemirov	Date	Wed, 21 Aug 2002 17:56:18 +0500
To	Keith Briffa
Subject	Re: Yamal paper for The Holocene special issue
Dear Keith, thank you very much for editing our paper. It's a pity you strike your name off the list of authors, you make an important contribution to writing paper. Your corrections and additions surely improve paper. I would only notice the next sentence (page 8): 'The low interannual variability and the minimum occurrence of cold extremes during the 20th century, argue that the most recent decades of this long summer record represent the most favourable climate conditions for tree growth within the last four millennia.' I'm not sure that this statement follows unambiguous from results presented in this paper. Because mean temperatures during last decades, according presented reconstruction, are not exceptional. Besides, e.g. period about 1700 BC, according this reconstruction, represent probably the same conditions taking into account low variability, low occurrence of extremes and high mean temperature. May be to soften this statement and replace 'the most favourable' with something like 'highly favourably' or 'probably the most favourable'? Thank you once more for invaluable assistance. Best regards, Rashit M. Hantemirov (I'm sorry for the late answer, I just come back from the trip to the north.) Lab. of Dendrochronology Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology 8 Marta St., 202 Ekaterinburg, 620144, Russia e-mail: rashit@ipae.uran.ru Fax: +7 (3432) 29 41 61; phone: +7 (3432) 29 40 92 http://ipae.uran.ru/8personalies/dendro.html#3