From: "Michael E. Mann" To: Keith Briffa Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: NEED HELP! Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 07:21:55 -0400 Hi Keith, Thanks--yes, we seem to back in the days of McCarthyism in the States. Fortunately, we have some good people who will represent us legally pro bono, and in the best case scenario, this backfires on these thugs... The response of the wording is likely to change dramatically after consulation w/ lawyers, etc. but any feedback on the substance would nonetheless be very helpful... thanks for both your help and your support, mike At 05:48 AM 6/28/2005, you wrote: Mike just in and seeing this for time - will digest - but do not like look or implications of this at all Keith At 17:00 25/06/2005, you wrote: Tim/Keith/Phil, Please see attached letter from the U.S. House republicans. As Tom has mentioned below, it would be very helpful if I can get feedback from you all as I proceed w/ drafting a formal response. Thanks in advance for any help, mike Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:36:49 -0600 From: Tom Wigley Organization: NCAR/CGD User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en To: Michael Oppenheimer Cc: "Michael E. Mann" , shs@stanford.edu, dlashof@nrdc.org, jhansen@giss.nasa.gov, mmaccrac@comcast.net, santer1@llnl.gov, wigley@ucar.edu, Caspar Ammann Subject: Re: NEED HELP! X-UVA-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at fork9.mail.virginia.edu Mike, There are broader implications of this, so it is important to respond well. It is a pity you have to be the guinea pig after what you have gone through already, but you have many supporters. I would not advise a legal route. I think you need to consider this as just another set of referees' comments and respond simply, clearly and directly. On the science side the key point is that the M&M criticisms are unfounded. Although this may be difficult, remember that this is not really a criticism of you personally, but one aspect of a criticism of the foundations of global warming science by people both inside and outside of Congress who have ulterior motives. There may, in fact, be an opportunity here. As you know, we suspect that there has been an abuse of the scientific review process at the journal editor level. The method is to choose reviewers who are sympathetic to the anti-greenhouse view. Recent papers in GRL (including the M&M paper) have clearly not been reviewed by appropriate people. We have a strong suspicion that this is the case, but, of course, no proof because we do not know *who* the reviewers of these papers have been. Perhaps now is the time to make this a direct accusation and request (or demand) that this information be made available. In order to properly defend the good science it is essential that the reasons for bad science appearing in the literature be investigated. The lever here is that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is suggesting that your papers are bad science and asking (their point 8e) for the identity of people who reviewed your work. In response, it is completely fair and justifiable to point out that it is the papers that criticize your and related work that are bad science, and that, through the Subcommittee you can request the identities of the reviewers of all of these critical papers -- starting with M&M. When you respond, there are a number of items that require a direct response from you alone. There are also a number of scientific points where you could give a multi-authored response. There are many people who have expertise in this area and familiarity with the scientific issues who I am sure would be willing to join you (I would be happy to do so). At this stage, however, I would keep the group small. A few others could be added to the original email list nevertheless. I took the liberty of copying your plea and the Subcommittee's letter to Caspar Ammann, primarily because I think he can help with the scientific aspects better than most people. After all, he has been able to follow your method and reproduce your results, he has shown the flaws in M&M's work, he has investigated the bristlecone pine issue, and he has made all his software available on the web. The others who could be added at this early stage are Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes, your 'co-conspirators' -- and perhaps Phil Jones, Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn. I do not know how 'powerful' these alien opinions may be in the present parochial context, but I note that the instigators of all this are Canadians and that the science has no national boundaries. Phil, Keith and Tim are useful because they have demonstrated the flaws in the von Storch work -- which is, I assume, the Science paper that the Subcommittee's letter referes to. A word of warning. I would be careful about using other, independent paleo reconstruction work as supporting the MBH reconstructions. I am attaching my version of a comparison of the bulk of these other reconstructions. Although these all show the hockey stick shape, the differences between them prior to 1850 make me very nervous. If I were on the greenhouse deniers' side, I would be inclined to focus on the wide range of paleo results and the differences between them as an argument for dismissing them all. I attach also a run with MAGICC using central-estimate climate model parameters (DT2x = 2.6 degC, etc. -- see the TAR), and forcings used by Caspar in the runs with paleo-CSM. I have another Figure somewhere that compares MAGICC with paleo-CSM. The agreement is nearly perfect (given that CSM has internally generated noise while MAGICC is pure signal). The support for the hockey stick is not just the paleo reconstructions, but also the model results. If one takes the best estimates of past forcing off the shelf, then the model results show the hockey stick shape. No tuning or fudging here; this is a totally independent analysis, and critics of the paleo data, if they disbelieve these data, have to explain why models get the same result. Of course, von Storch's model results do not show such good century timescale agreement, but this is because he uses silly forcing and has failed to account for the fact that his model was not in equilibrium at the start of the run (the subject of Tim Osborn et al.'s submitted paper). This is a pain in the but, but it will all work out well in the end (unintentional pun -- sorry). Good science will prevail. Best wishes, Tom. ----------------------------------------------- Michael Oppenheimer wrote: Michael: This is outrageous. I'll contact some people who may be able to help right away. ---------- From: Michael E. Mann [<[1]mailto:mann@virginia.edu>[2]mailto:mann@virginia.edu] Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 4:27 PM To: <[3]mailto:shs@stanford.edu>shs@stanford.edu; <[4]mailto:omichael@Princeton.EDU>omichael@Princeton.EDU; <[5]mailto:dlashof@nrdc.org>dlashof@nrdc.org; <[6]mailto:jhansen@giss.nasa.gov>jhansen@giss.nasa.gov; <[7]mailto:mmaccrac@comcast.net>mmaccrac@comcast.net; <[8]mailto:santer1@llnl.gov>santer1@llnl.gov; <[9]mailto:wigley@ucar.edu>wigley@ucar.edu Subject: NEED HELP! Importance: High dear all, this was predicted--they're of course trying to make things impossible for me. I need immediate help regarding recourse for free legal advice, etc. mike ______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: <[10]mailto:mann@virginia.edu>mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [11]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml ______________________________________________________________ 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 [12]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [13]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ ______________________________________________________________ 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 [14]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml References 1. mailto:mann@virginia.edu 2. mailto:mann@virginia.edu 3. mailto:shs@stanford.edu 4. mailto:omichael@Princeton.EDU%3Eomichael@Princeton.EDU 5. mailto:dlashof@nrdc.org 6. mailto:jhansen@giss.nasa.gov%3Ejhansen@giss.nasa.gov 7. mailto:mmaccrac@comcast.net 8. mailto:santer1@llnl.gov%3Esanter1@llnl.gov 9. mailto:wigley@ucar.edu 10. mailto:mann@virginia.edu 11. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 12. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml 13. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ 14. http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml