date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:31:58 UT
from: grlonline@agu.org
subject: Review Received by Geophysical Research Letters
to: p.jones@uea.ac.uk

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   (F2.74; B3.07; Q3.07) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:31:58 UT Message-Id: <1118675991820@gems>
   Dear Dr. Jones:
   Thank you for your review of "The phenomenological solar effect on climate" by Nicola
   Scafetta and Bruce West [Paper #2007GL031345], which we have safely received. A copy of
   this review is attached below for your reference.
   Thank you for your time and effort!
   Sincerely,
   Mark New
   Editor
   Geophysical Research Letters
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Science Category: Science Category 4
   Presentation Category: Presentation Category C
   Annotated Manuscript: No
   Anonymous: Yes
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   Highlight:
   ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
   Publishing this will generate a number of comments, plus irate letters from the three
   earlier reviewers
   Formal Review:
   Review of Scafetta and West
   I am a new reviewer and have been sent the revised submission plus the responses to the
   previous reviews. I began by reading the revised paper, then had a relatively quick look
   through the earlier comments and responses.
   My overall impression of that the paper is that it shouldn't be published. It makes too
   many claims that aren't justified, and seems more an exercise in curve fitting (the arm
   waving one of the earlier reviewer's refers to). I have separated my comments into major
   and minor ones.
   Major comments
   1. There are many other quotes from the 2007 IPCC report in various chapters. You seem to
   want to use the one from Ch 9 to justify the 0.1K response to the solar cycle since 1980.
   However, just look at the observations of global temperature and show the reader how you
   can justify this? EBMs get much smaller amplitudes and these are more realistic. The reason
   they are smaller is that they are also accounting for volcanic forcing of the climate
   system over the same time. There is only 26 years of data since 1980 and there are two
   major volcanic eruptions in 1982 and 1991 which were 9 years apart. I can't see how you can
   look at solar influences on the 11-year timescale over this short period and ignore
   volcanic forcing. The omission of volcanic forcing will come up again.
   2. If EBMs (or even GCMs for that matter) are missing important processes then come up with
   mechanisms to show that they are important! It is no good just saying that something is
   missing in the models - prove it. This is all speculation. Modellers will be able to
   incorporate these aspects into climate models (probably in GCMs first) if the mechanism
   (amplification process) can be shown. It is circular to try and say this must be happening
   by looking at the global temperature data.
   3. The point about GHG and TSI not being independent is not an issue on the timescale of
   the last few hundred years. It is an issue on the Ice Age timescale, but it isn't on this
   timescale. The GHGs in the atmosphere can be shown to be anthropogenic and not related to
   any feedbacks.
   4. For global temperature data you have chosen the two extreme series (in terms of
   amplitude of changes) from the plethora of series that have reconstructed temperatures over
   the last 1000 to 2000 years. This is reasonable to give you a range, but have you
   considered that many of the others look more like the Mann series than Moberg's. So from
   the spread of the various series (see IPCC Ch 6) Mann's series is more likely to be nearer
   the truth. There are also a number of statements in the paragraph about the description of
   the Mann series (Hockey Stick, Blade, Shaft) that are unnecessary. It is also not necessary
   at this stage to pre-judge the reader to say solar activity was low during the LIA (by the
   way you never define when this was, nor when it ended).
   5. What is totally unreasonable about your use of these series is to patch the instrumental
   record from 1850 onwards on the end. You need to show the Mann and Moberg series through to
   their ends then add the instrumental data to the plot for comparison (after whatever
   smoothing you've applied). You don't say in Figure 1 how the series have been smoothed. You
   say you've given them the same mean over 1850-1899 (a reasonably good choice), but on what
   timescale? Did you also scale their interannual variances over this period as well? You
   could patch a few years on the end from about 1990, but don't do it the way you have. All
   the millennial reconstructions have different characteristics to the instrumental series.
   6. Why are you bothering to use the Lean (2000) TSI reconstruction? Surely the Wang et al.
   (2005) paper supercedes this. I'm sure Judith Lean would agree with this being her latest
   thinking. If I write a new paper with a new series, I would expect people to use the new
   series, or use the old one of they are not up date with the literature. I wouldn't expect
   both to be used. This is different with the millennial reconstructions. There are various
   groups involved. With Lean it is the same person. She doesn't believe her 2000 paper now,
   so why do you still use it. You could use another person's reconstruction.
   7. I've been saying to myself all along why ignore volcanic forcing. I see that the earlier
   referees mentioned the omission of other non-solar forcing. Volcanoes are the main one to
   my mind - there were a number of major volcanoes in the period from 1670 to 1700. Land-use
   change is much more uncertain and likely to be much smaller. Smoothing the proxy
   temperature reconstructions doesn't negate volcanism (as the effects are episodic) when
   events occur regularly. There are a number of volcanic forcing series that can be used.
   8. One of the other arguments of Reviewer 4 is very compelling, but completely dismissed by
   the authors. This is the implication of saying the Moberg series is better than Mann and
   what this means for the period before 1600. I know the sunspot observations don't exist
   before this time, but there are beryllium and carbon-14 indices that say something about
   solar variability on longer timescales. They don't suggest that solar output was that much
   higher in Medieval times to explain the high temperature levels Moberg has then. If I were
   the authors, I would re-read Moberg's paper to see what the low frequency for the last 2
   millennia is based on. I wouldn't want to put any faith in these proxies ability to record
   low-frequency temperature variations - a feature that cannot be assessed at all against
   instrumental temperature records.
   Minor comments
   1. Putting the word 'Phenomenonological' in the title wasn't a good start. It isn't a great
   word and is repeated several times in the abstract.
   2. A reference shouldn't be in the abstract. Also the IPCC (2007) report has with each
   chapter indicated how it should be cited. Just giving the page number is not appropriate.
   Why not refer to it as requested by IPCC.
   3. The first sentence of the Introduction is not a good start. It needs a reference. The
   SPM of the AR4 IPCC report doesn't think there is much of a debate. They said they were 90%
   certain. Isn't this good enough in your mind. That there is an anthropogenic contribution
   is what is important.
   4. With Figure 1, I can't see where the amplitudes of 0.2 and 0.8 K are plucked from.
   5. I have said earlier, but when was the LIA. I know it is not defined at all well. It is
   far simpler to use calendar dates than pejorative terms like LIA and MWP. By their name
   they convey messages to the reader. Dates don't.
   6. You seem to want to ignore Frhlich's PMOD series that adjusts the ACRIM series. It
   seems as though throughout the paper you want to take the series - solar and millennial
   temperature that go along with your preconceptions. I can see you're trying to use
   different series to accommodate the possible ranges of the various series, but if Frlich
   and Lean are right, then from solar alone Moberg must be wrong.
