From	Keith Briffa	Date	Mon Oct 13 15:57:13 2003
To	Tim Osborn
Subject	Fwd: minor explosion
X-Sender: esper@mail.wsl.ch Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:21:03 +0200 To: Keith Briffa From: Jan Esper Subject: minor explosion Cc: Wilson Rob Hi Keith thank you for the message and the comments to the Siberia draft. We are intending to finalize a draft when Rob is coming over and we go on a sampling trip to the Bavarian Forest and E-Germany. We will then also discuss of data-overlap issue again and might include some extra figure with our record re-calculated (without Tornetraesk and Polar Ural). However, I (Jan) an not sure that we should have another figure with only the Mann and the (reduced) Esper series. Second, it seems that Mann used the density records from these two sites only (not ring width). Lets see. We would really like to send you the final draft, and ask you to become the fourth author? We ask this not only because of the "minor explosion" that might happen, but also because some of the arguments in the draft were made earlier by you anyway. What do you think? Take care Jan and Dave CC R Wilson Jan with respect to the overlap problem we could agree to differ for now -I think the problem is much more in the earlier period anyway but I suggest you go ahead and submit it anyway. There are some minor wording points but nothing that affects the meaning. You know that in my opinion the recent similarity in the records is driven by instrumental data inclusion (or calibration against instrumental data) and that Mann's earlier data are strongly biased towards summer and northern land signals. I think you will start a minor explosion - but that is what science needs . I looked at your tree-line data and thought them very interesting. In my opinion the way you directed the interpretation was what drew your criticisms . For a climate journal you should have been pointing out the complicated regional responses (to the temperature record) rather than trying to state a simple overall response. The data are clearly important and you should have no trouble publishing them if you rethink the approach to the description (no work needed). I think Boreas or Arctic and Alpine Res. are better targets though. I enjoyed the discussions also and it is frustrating not to be able to get up to speed with your other projects. I will get back to you when I have looked more at the idea of the big review paper. the very best to you and all Keith At 09:55 AM 10/8/03 +0200, Jan Esper wrote: Hi Keith with respect to our EOS draft, I am still thinking about the data overlap argument you made. 1. I still believe that the overlap is not that significant, and that the significance is changing dramatically with time (less in more recent centuries). 2. With respect to the aim of the paper, we do NOT intend to explain the similarity between the records. We rather address that the recons differ in the lower frequency domains AND are much more similar in the higher frequency domains. I believe that this is crucial. (One could also say that we only address the dissimilarity, and the arguments related to that.) I appreciated the discussions we had very, very much (especially the one in the night before the official meeting). Take care Jan CC D Frank R Wilson -- Dr. Jan Esper Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf Switzerland Phone: +41-1-739 2510 Fax: +41-1-739 2215 Email: esper@wsl.ch -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ -- Dr. Jan Esper Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf Switzerland Phone: +41-1-739 2510 Fax: +41-1-739 2215 Email: esper@wsl.ch -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [2]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa[3]/ References 1. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ 2. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ 3. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/