From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@virginia.edu>
To: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>
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 <wigley@cgd.ucar.edu>
     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 <omichael@princeton.edu>
     Cc: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@virginia.edu>, shs@stanford.edu, dlashof@nrdc.org,
        jhansen@giss.nasa.gov, mmaccrac@comcast.net, santer1@llnl.gov,
        wigley@ucar.edu, Caspar Ammann <ammann@ucar.edu>
     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

